Originally posted on a blogger account, and now moved here and time-stamp adjusted.

Our server is down and not blogging is driving me crazy. So, I created this account to at least have a place to post my posts until our server is back up and running. James is upgrading the server so it’s down until the end of the week.

I went to weight watchers on Saturday morning. I don’t think I ever posted about last week’s weigh in. So to catch you up, 2 weeks ago (the week before Christmas), I had a great loss of 4 lbs. Then Christmas and staying home and eating my body weight in yumminess hit, and last week I gained 3.8 lbs. I was seriously bummed. I made rice krispie treats that Saturday thinking the kids would love them, and ended up eating most of them myself (Jocelyn loved them and her face turned into a melting away marshmellowy nightmare, Ethan didn’t really even try them, he’s Mr. Picky). I got back on track fairly quickly thought, and this week I’m happy to report I had a 3.8 lb loss! On the upside, there are no more holidays. I am trying not to look at my total lbs loss and the weeks I’ve been giving this a go and getting depressed. I mean, I have managed to lose 10 lbs over the holidays! That is GREAT (she says through gritted teeth).

So, with project skinny in mind, here is my #1 New Years Resolution. I am putting it here, for all to see.

1. Get a family portrait taken at the end of this year to send out in Christmas cards.

The amount I lose is not in here, though I’m sure I will make lots of mini goals along the way. This year I got our wedding photo negatives scanned in and then uploaded them all to our flickr account. I was looking them over and really just feeling sick about how I looked. This is a real cop-out, but I have to say going off Depo-Provera was the best thing I ever did (A. it did not help the weight thing, and B. it made me full on crazy. TOTALLY! CRAZY! Seriously, I’m scared of birth control now.) Seriously, I’m not *really* one to not allow people to take pictures of me, though I do remember at a recent party holding up my hand in front of the camera that was not even 2 feet from me (I just really didn’t want my pores to be that closely examined) but generally speaking, I’m not picture shy. Looking over our wedding pictures may have totally changed that. Blech. So, as Project Skinny progresses, I would like to have a nice family picture at the end of the year to look at and be pleased over. So there it is.

And while I’m talking about project skinny, I am also happy to report that this weekend wasn’t a full on ignoring the whole weight watchers scenario, like I usually do. I usually just eat whatever I want, and then figure I’ve used up all my weekly “flex” points (just think of them as extra credit) and stick to my daily points for the rest of the week. This weekend, while I did have some nice splurges on things like chicken pot pie and a burger and fries from 5 Guys (yum), I think if I had counted points, I probably wouldn’t even be that far into the weekly flex points. It’s nice to start the week feeling like I haven’t dug a hole that I now have to work all week to climb out of.

I think I will stop now for today, and post later or tomorrow on other thoughts that have been rambling around in the noggin.

Just in case you are suffering from cute kid stories withdrawal, I will let you know that Jocelyn’s new Word Of The Day, is “Awesome.” Yes. She’s not even two, but she will randomly declare, “Awesome… Daddy. Awesome.”

amy rocked the casbah.

WOWEE CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT AND BOY WAS IT FUN

I feel like I need to do catchup on all the stuff that’s been going on since I last posted. Obviously, Christmas came and went. It was really wonderful. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last Friday I got to thinking about the weekend and decided I didn’t really want to be bothered going to a WW meeting Saturday morning, so I went to one close to my work during lunch. I had a very exciting loss. The bad side of course is the last week has been all Christmasy and staying at home and generally I do rather poorly during holidays and also when I’m at home. So today and tomorrow I’m really trying to get back on track to hopefully maintain that loss, or at least not gain it ALL back. Guess we’ll see Saturday morning.

Saturday morning (Christmas Eve Day!) Ethan and I went out to do some errands and get the Christmas present for James that I had inadvertently not ordered. Ethan was happy that it was a copy of Jarhead on unabridged CD, and thus, he got to play with the Thomas trains at Barnes and Noble for a little bit.

We had a pleasant afternoon making cookies (Chocolate Crinkles) for Santa and playing with the kids. Then night fell, and after waiting an hour to make sure everyone was asleep, the Great Christmas Eve Tryst began. You know, the tryst that every parent makes with their spouse on Christmas Eve, the tryst of putting together all the things that need to be put together, wrapping the presents that still need wrapping, getting everything down under the tree, and NOT forgetting to eat or at least put away the cookies and milk for Santa (we forgot last year. Luckily no one noticed). We were pooped by midnight. James did the brunt of the putting together work however. Maybe next year we should do it earlier, LIKE I SUGGESTED WE DO several nights before. Ahem. Not that I’m bitter or anything. It’d just be nice to have a relaxing Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning I was half awake when I heard the click of Ethan’s door opening and closing as he made his way to the bathroom. After I heard the toilet flush, I propped myself up to check out our door to make sure he didn’t go down the stairs. He started to, but I called him and he came running in and did a whole running flying tackle thing onto our bed. Well, it SEEMS like he did, but he had to climb up the bed first and THEN he did the flying tackle thing over to the head of the bed, where we were. He snuggled in with us for a while while we waited for any signs of life from Jocelyn, and then we all made our way downstairs for Christmas.

It was at this point I realized that we only had like 10 minutes on the tape in our camcorder, as I taped the kids coming into the living room and seeing the little tikes play kitchen that was all set up.

James looked everywhere for more tapes but none were to be had, so I stopped rolling tape and we switched to the camera instead. While I’m disappointed, because when I’m old and they’re all grown I know I’m going to want to see this and FEEL the excitement of the 3 and 1 year olds on Christmas morning. Photos are always nice, but video is better for really feeling it. BUT on the other side, it’s hard to enjoy Christmas when you have to pay attention to the camera. I think maybe setting it up in a corner on a tripod might be the way to go next year. Of course, that’s only if we actually HAVE A TAPE TO TAPE IT ON. Later on we discovered we did not have any AAA or C batteries in the house. I scrounged some out of other older, and thus not important toys to put in the new toys. However, given the amount of toys that were opened, the ratio to those needing batteries and those which came with batteries already installed was actually pretty good.

It was a nice Christmas morning. Not really marred by the fact that the cinnamon rolls I made didn’t turn out at all. I made them the night before, put them in the dish, and then covered with saran wrap and stuck them in the fridge to bake the next morning. They just didn’t seem to want to get “done”, each time I pulled them out they were still doughy. Next year I’m not killing myself making cinnamon rolls from scratch, we’ll just buy the damn things and heat them up for Christmas morning. In my family, we always had homemade bran date muffins, which sounds nasty, but actually was super yummy. But not as yummy as cinnamon rolls, so I cast my own family traditions to the wayside to go with James’ family traditions. Cough. Hey, yumminess wins, what can I say.

POST-CHRISTMAS EVENTS

Monday was a day off of work for both of us, but Tuesday and Wednesday James went back to work while I stayed home, and now today (Thursday) and tomorrow, I work while James stays home. Jocelyn’s day care provider is on vacation this week, thus the staying at home. And while Ethan’s school is open, if Jocelyn is home might as well have Ethan home also. It has been really nice staying home with them. I don’t know if this JUST happened, like it FEELS like it happened, or it’s been gradual and I just haven’t noticed, but Jocelyn is just becoming such a sweet little PERSON. (This is where I probably will launch into Cute Kid Stories, just so you are warned.) She understands so much of what we’re saying, and while she doesn’t string more than 2 words together yet, she is starting to really get this communication thing down and is so pleased with herself for doing so as well.

I remember when Ethan was her age and was just starting to talk a lot, his stock phrase was, “Maybe later.” – And WHAT A BLESSING that it was, because you do not know HELL until you have to take away a toy or try to explain why you can’t go to the bookstore and play with the train table there and then put up with the fit that ensues. With Ethan, he just seemed to latch onto that concept, that sure, I may not be able to do it now, but there is always later, and he was always saying, “Maybe later!” to my, “Not right now,” and oh what a boon that was.

Well, Jocelyn’s stock phrase is definitely, “That’s better.” She says it all the time, whenever anything happens that pleases her. She is on the floor, “Up peas! Up peas!” and I pick her up, and she looks around and states, “Dat’s better.” I am really drilling the manners thing into her. It was only recently that she started to actually say, “Please” instead of just throwing a fit when she wanted something, and I try to NOT give her whatever it is she wants, until she communicates that she wants it. This makes for some unpleasant times if she doesn’t want to say it, but would rather throw herself on the floor with the Jocelyn Volume turned all the way up to “Burst Eardrums,” but generally, it seems to be working out well.

CUTE KID STORIES OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MIGHT AS WELL GET THIS UNDER THE PROPER HEADING ALREADY

Here is a list of cuteness I have observed or participated in recently:

• Jocelyn has an intolerance to dairy. She gets all snotty and sickly if she has milk proteins. Ethan was the same way, but outgrew it by the time he was 18 months old. Jocelyn still hasn’t outgrown it, and as such, has soy milk instead of cow milk. So, it’s fairly important that she not drink out of Ethan’s sippy cup. We let Ethan have soy milk whenever he wants. Anyway, so in the sippy cup department, we have purple and pink cups and lids, as well as green, blue, yellow, and one ghastly orange cup. So being a girl, of course we give Jocelyn some purple and/or pink in her cup and/or lid so we’ll be able to know which one is hers. I have never been all that much of a pink sort of person, and I’m always grumpy when I get her cup ready for the day. I mean really, she should have blue if she wants! Or yellow! Who are these nazis who decide what colors are girly and which are not??! Ahem. Anyway. So the other day, I got her a purple cup and purposefully put a blue lid on it. It’s got purple in it, right? Right! Good enough, dammit!So, the morning goes on, and I catch Jocelyn picking up her (full!) cup, and walking over to Ethan. “Here, Ethan.” I try to correct her, and tell her that it’s HER cup, but she will have nothing of it, and keeps “giving” Ethan the cup. She apparently totally knows which colors are hers and which ARE NOT, and she will not bring cup to lips that do not have pink or purple lids, by george!
• Still on the sippy cups, but different story. Jocelyn loves to pick things up and bring them to you. Even if you didn’t want them. It’s something to do with this age. Also interesting, it’s the same age that she would rather pick something up herself rather than take it from your hand. Case in point, I had a bread stick and broke some of it off and offered it to her, to an immediate protest of, “NOOOOOOOO!” – but when I laid it on her plate in front of her, she picked it right up and crammed the entire thing in her mouth. Ain’t development kooky?

  Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah! So Jocelyn picks up Ethan’s cup and brings it over to him. Ethan is otherwise engaged and didn’t particularly care if his cup was brought to him or not, and barely notices. Jocelyn puts the cup on the couch in front of him and turns to face him. “Dankooo” (jocelyn-speak for “thank you”) she says to him. “Dankoo!” She repeats. “DANKOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” She says again, until I realize that she is WAITING for him to say thank you! She is DEMANDING IT! “DANKOOOOOO!!!!” she hollers at him again, and I have to give Ethan a gentle, “Tell her thank you for crying out loud!” which he does and then she grins and trots merrily off. It was pretty funny.

• Especially when Jocelyn was a baby and couldn’t do any talking for herself, I’ve often referred to her to Ethan, as “our girl”. She would roll over, and I’d say to Ethan, “What is our girl DOING!” to get him engaged in the situation. It has dropped off more and more as she’s grown older and I’ve just used her name instead. The other day, Ethan had come downstairs after waking up from nap time and was playing with his train. Sounds of “HI! HI!” started to emanate from the baby monitor connected to her room. Ethan said to me without looking up from the train, “It sounds like our girl is awake, Mommy!”
• I bought a new plastic bin with a lid to keep Ethan’s GeoTrax train stuff in. I bought an extra one cause I thought it was especially nifty and knew we could use another one for something somewhere. So I brought them in from the car when I bought them and they were hanging out in the family room for most of the day yesterday. The bin height is exactly at crotch level for Jocelyn, which means she can climb into it fairly easily. Ethan was climbing in and out of one of them immediately, so Jocelyn decided to give it a try as well. She climbed in and out of that bin for EASILY a half hour, totally involved in the process of swinging her leg over and bracing herself and then getting her other leg in and sitting down. Then standing up and doing it all over again.

  Even more amusing is even AFTER she’s done it 20 or so times, she started to get all anxious at that point when she has placed one leg over, and her foot hasn’t quite touched the bottom of the bin and she starts to feel all, “oh no i MIGHT lose my balance and why was i doing this in the first place????!” and starts to “Uh! Uh! Uh!” about the situation until there we go, her foot hits the bottom of the bin and her hands are firmly placed on the bin’s sides and then she’s in (“Dat’s better.”) and she lowers her little bottom down and kind of slides until she’s almost laying down inside the bin. Then she looks over at me and says, “HI! Mommy! HI! LOOK! FEETSIES! HI!” and then temporarily freaks out as she tries to get upright again even though she has already done it successfully the last 30 zillion times without any help, manages to get up, and then does it all again another fifty zillion times.

• Ethan doesn’t quite know the meaning of some words, despite parental issued corrections. He will interchange other words for the actual word he means. In his head, it means what the other word means.
  • “Last night” is code for anything that happened in the past.In addition to this, I think he thought that nap time was actually nighttime, and after nap time it was a new day. He loves to get dressed, and he usually comes down from nap time in a new set of clothes, even when I tell him he doesn’t need to change clothes. So sometimes he’ll make a reference to “Last night” when he actually means “this morning”. It’s actually a little scary, because he thought that he was actually staying overnight at his school, with the whole nap time = nighttime = new day thing. This is how I actually realized his misconception. It’s tough, because everything in the past is already “last night”, but he referred to something as “yesterday” and when I tried to correct him, he was really adamant and to explain, told me that it was before nap time, therefore, yesterday. We’re working on correcting this issue.
  • “Anything” actually means “nothing” or sometimes, “something”. Same thing for “anywhere” and “nowhere”.

    James: “Whatcha looking for Ethan?”
    Ethan, all trying to be sneaky and hide his true objective: “Anything.”

    Amy: “Where did your hot dogs go?”
    Ethan: “Anywhere! – Just kidding mommy, they’re in my tummy!”

• That last example reminded me of something Ethan did once. It was a while ago (like, probably over 6 months ago) but I believe it went something like this:

  Mommy: Where did your dinner go?
  Ethan: It went in my mouth, and down my throat, and into my tummy!
  Mommy: It sure did!
  Ethan: And then it went down my legs! Into my toes!
  Mommy: It did not!
  Ethan: It did too! And then it went to my bottom and I poop it out!
  Mommy: Well at least that part is right.

  I belive at this point, Daddy pointed out that if you get technical it DOES go to his legs and his toes and everywhere.

• Last night it was my turn to put Jocelyn to bed, and they had had baths just before. I had Jocelyn in her room, and James was still getting Ethan out of the tub and bundled into a towel. We heard him pull the plug in the tub, and could hear the gurgling water going down the drain noises. Jocelyn heard it, and stopped what she was doing to sing, “BYE BYE POOP!! BYE BYE WEE!”

On Tuesday, I took down the tree. FIrst of all, it was not a good tree to begin with. It was CROOKED.

I never did post about the day that it FELL OVER due to it’s crookedness and *cough* our inability to get it into the stand straight. So one morning it totally just fell over. Also, I let it go dry for too long and once that stump gets all dried out no amount of watering is going to get moisture to those needles and if they’re dry they fall off and that’s that. So I was looking at our sad tree, no presents underneath anymore to direct one’s attention there, and no presents to cover up the MASSES of needles that had fallen off. So with some “help” from the kids, we stripped it of ornaments and lights, and I hauled it into the garage to await trash day. It took my three separate vacuumings to get all the needles up, because about 3 bucketfuls had dropped in the de-decorating of the tree. Plus tons of itty bitty branchlets that were too big to just vacuum up and therefore had to be picked up by hand. The kids actually were a very good help at picking those up and putting them in the trash. Ethan used his new garbage truck to “collect” them and then “dump” them into the trash.

So our tree is down, which makes more room for GeoTrax Train Setups Extraordinaire! I took some action shots.

The timeless “My Little Pony On The Tracks” dilemma.

I think I’ve inflicted enough word-pain on anyone reading this today, so I will stop. It was a nice holiday. This weekend, I may send out year-end cards. If I remember.

– amy brings her face close to yours and gives you a great big “MMMMMMMMMWAH!!!!”

I’m at work today, the Friday before the big Christmas weekend, because I’m not allowed to take vacation until I’ve been here for 6 months, and I had to use most of the fancy comp time I had built up specifically for next week to stay home with my sick son and then again when it snowed and his school was closed, which doesn’t leave me with a lot of comp time to use on luxurious staying home around the holidays. I don’t mind being at work really, because boy was the traffic BREEZY and there’s not really many people here, so it’s quiet and kind of nice. However, I have had contact with home a few times and it makes me a little sad to hear all the cute oh-so-Christmasy sounds emanating through the phone at me, like the sound of Jocelyn talking her cute little phrases, “What doing?” “Stuck!” “Dat better!” “HI! HI! HI!” and Ethan singing his cute little nonsense songs and the sound of the Christmas train choo-chooing and whistling and just the overall snuggly coziness that home sounds like in those brief seconds.

It’s ok though. I have several of snuggly Christmasy staying at home days coming up, so I can handle today. And while I belive I’m going to get VERY busy directly after new years, right now the actual availability of work is on the low side so it makes for a pleasant, slow sort of work day.

While this year I got all grown up and sent presents to all of my family and even most of James’ family (all of his immediate family), I neglected to get something for my only remaining grandparent, my mother’s mother. I can’t BELIEVE I overlooked her, errgh. And it would be especially bad if she came over to my folks house for Christmas day, which is a likely scenario, and if everyone opened presents from us while my grandmother sat and wondered where HER present from us was and why didn’t she get one. I did realize this in time to select something online and have it sent to her, but noooooo I neglected to do this as well. When I discussed it with my mom, she mentioned that I might just send her some flowers, so earlier this week as I desperately cast around for something to send for her, I landed on that idea. Which quickly changed to, “Flowers die, I’ll send her yumminess! Then at least when it’s gone, you still got to eat something good!” So I browsed around Harry and David looking for something tasty, which they ALWAYS have, and that led to me asking James if he thought HIS grandmother would like some too, which he thought she would, so I ordered some for her as well. Then just as I was thinking how yummilicious everything was looking, it popped up with “Order some for you and get 20% off!” Seriously, who can resist that? So Grandma is getting a box, James’ Nana is getting a box, and now WE are getting a box too. Yum. I love Harry and David fruit.

This is not the end of the story. The next paragraph seems unrelated, but actually IS RELATED. You just have to trust me on this.

So last night I was wrapping up a few remaining presents, and I thought, hmm. I know I had more stuff for James. Now, I didn’t go all hog crazy with presents for James, but when I wandered around the house collecting the boxes that had arrived from various online stores that I knew that contained James presents, I only found two, and one of them I remembered what was in it, and it was pretty minor. I walked around a couple more times trying to think if I had placed a box in a super secret hiding place SO super and SO secret that I had forgotten where it is and James will have to have his present in 2013 when we sell this house and found the super secret hiding place only because the entire house is being packed up to move to, I don’t know, Canada.* It didn’t help that I couldn’t actually remember what was supposed to be in the missing box, or even which online store the mythical box came from. By this morning, I had actually remembered the item that was missing, so I felt relieved that at least I wasn’t going crazy. I do have specific memories of placing this item in a shopping cart, but I am fickle sometimes and perhaps did not follow through on the actual ordering. So this morning I hop on my e-mail and try to track down whether or not I actually ordered the item or not. It turns out that I did not. Silly silly Amy! No big deal, because I can go get it in a store, it just probably won’t be as cheap.

So, while I was rummaging around in my “orders” e-mail folder, I decided to check in on the Harry and David boxes, and was pleased to see that both grandmother’s orders had been marked as “Delivered” and that our box was currently out for delivery. However, on closer inspection, I saw that ours and Nana’s box were the same, but my grandmother’s had a different product. I ordered the same thing for all three orders. Then on even CLOSER inspection, I realized that NONE of the three orders had the box that I actually ordered, they were totally something else! So, depending on what arrives at our house, I may or may not open up a can of whup-ass on Harry and David for sending the wrong items. I figure I can at least wait to see what we get, and maybe it actually is what I ordered, and they just put something else on the tracking page for some odd reason. The box I ordered had apples and pears and I *think* chocolate covered cherries. I want the box I ordered dammit!

* Oh. My. God, do I love the run on sentences. You really should hold an intervention for me or something.

I hope that you love me and forgive my pointless seemingly-never-ending stories. Because I don’t think it’s likely to stop any time soon.

I’m getting my haircut today at 4:30. THAT went over well when I told James last night:

me, mumbling incoherently: I made an appointment to get my hair cut at 4:30 tomorrow.
james: What did you say?
me: I made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow at 4:30.
james: WHAT?!!!*
me: I’M SORRY I CAN’T HELP IT!!
james: WHY are you getting your hair cut again?! I thought you liked it after you got it cut!
me: I DID like it! I liked how she did it! I, however, cannot do it like she did it! I’ve given it a week! I have tried!
james: What are you talking about?!
me: LOOK AT ME! I LOOK LIKE SHAGGY FROM SCOOBY DOO!
james stares intently into my eyes, probably trying to recall how he ever thought marrying a whacko like me was a good idea.
me: you’re looking at my eyes, LOOK AT THE HAIR!
james looks at the hair.
james, finally admitting to the shaggy doo look: You really don’t have the hair skills, do you.
Now, this is too much. I HAVE MAD HAIR SKILLZ. IT’S THE HAIRCUT PEOPLE!
me: I BOUGHT A NEW HAIRBRUSH! I EVEN GOT OUT TWO DIFFERENT SIZED CURLING IRONS. YOU EVEN SAID YOURSELF THAT IT WAS A MAZE OF CORDS AT MY SINK! I HAVE THE HAIR SKILLS, I JUST CAN’T GET THIS HAIRCUT TO WORK FOR ME!
james: Well, ok then.

* note: I JUST had my hair cut last week, and unfortunately I have a history of not liking haircuts and going and either making the original hair cutter redo it, or going to a different salon and getting it re-cut. *cough* I think I’ve done this 2 or more times. At least two though, in the past 2 years. Maybe even three. I just add this note to let you know that James reaction is pretty much on target, and I was totally expecting it.

Aren’t you sick of hearing about my hair? I know I am sick of spending gobs of time on it only to look like Shaggy Doo. I’m thinking, let’s hack it all off, something that requires no curling irons, no brushing while blow drying. I’ve totally used up my allowable minutes spent on hair beautification for this year and the next, so a bob* is starting to sound really good to me about now.

*How roaring 20’s is that? I think I’ll get my hair bobbed, go meet a sheik and slip into a speak-easy to drink and dance the Charleston. James, you can be my cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, or maybe even wasp’s nipples.

amy often thinks about what she would do if all other human beings were suddenly gone from the planet.

I wrote this post on Thursday but didn’t post it. So I’m posting it today, Friday, but changing the time stamp so it looks like it was posted Thursday, which is when I wrote it. I just wanted to be honest about the whole time stamp changing so that later, you wouldn’t come to me and say, “Amy, you CHANGED the time stamp and I just am not sure I can trust you ever again!” Ok. On with the post.

• I spent over 15 minutes (THAT IS A LOT OF TIME!) on hair beautification today. While the recent haircut renewed my motivation in looking like a grown-up, there is only so much time I am willing to spend. So, I was reasonably pleased when the results of my efforts looked, I would venture to say, fairly nice. However, by lunchtime, I once again looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. WHY!? I want to scream at the universe. WHY ME!?! So, I think I’m going to have to get another haircut. I just can’t handle this one.
• I have generally doing fairly well on Project Skinny. However, last week on Friday, my husband left me for the evening to go into DC and drink lots of beer with lots of friends. He deserves it. Even though he always gives me the sad face and makes like he did awful when I asked how his finals went, he once again got an A in two of his classes (third one still waiting) and with school over, I do not begrudge him his beer drinking festivities. Back to my point: I was home alone. With an unchained up fridge. That had some fudge in it. And some newly made sugar cookies. And then the next night was my office Christmas party, you know with the open bar. Anyway, I really didn’t do well for a few days last week, and up until that point, I had been doing “ok”. I got to thinking about “ok” and in many respects, “ok” is really good. I mean, if I continue at “ok” for 6 months, there will still be less of me than if I wasn’t on this project to begin with. Even if it is slow, I will take it. “Ok” is a lot better than doing nothing at all.Now that I’ve gotten all that out of the way, I’d like to say HOGWASH! I don’t want to do “ok!” I want to do “GREAT!” And this week, I think I really am doing great. I am not going to make my original goal of losing 20 pounds, so right now I’m looking to get out of the current bracket of 10s that I am in. I think I could even swing a total 10 pound loss by New Years Eve, IF I keep on track and stick with it. I’ve crossed the threshold and left the room of “Well, this is what I want but I don’t feel like it RIGHT NOW” and I am in a new place that feels focused and energized and DETERMINED.It feels good.
• Trying to make Scooby Doo faces and noises (“Arroo!” “Is that you Scooob??”) in the rear view mirror while driving is not a very good idea. Neither is constantly checking out your ‘do to see if it still looks like Shaggy. It does.
• I beleive the battery to my car beeper door-unlocker is dying. I click and click and click and it takes FOREVER. Do they have batteries? Do those batteries last forever? Can I just go to a Toyota dealership and say, GIVE ME NEW BATTERIES OR FACE MY WRATH! and have them comply? WHAT DO I DO OH WHAT DO I DO!
• What is “[sic]”? I see that all the time and I’ve never known what exactly it means. As near as I can figure out, it’s supposed to be an editor’s note that it was published or written with some error or spelling mistake and they didn’t want to bother fixing it but wanted us to know that they SAW it and KNOW that it’s there. Am I right? Is it an abbreviation for something? Please, someone, fill me in.Or I guess I could just go google.

Ahhhh.

So. Hi? How are you? It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve written here, but it hasn’t really. Just since Thursday. Once I get out of the habit of posting really regularly, it’s harder to get back in the habit. I’ll try to do better. I promise.

This weekend was sort of blurry in all the getting ready for christmas excitement. Saturday night was my company’s christmas party, and I’ve been meaning to get my hair cut for a while so it seemed like a good day for it. While I was at it I got my eyebrows waxed too (don’t laugh. If I do them, they end up not matching. it’s best to leave these things to the professionals.) In addition to getting my hair cut I decided to get some highlights, so I pretty much abandoned my family for various personal beautification processes.

Superficial Mode ON!

So I’ve dyed my hair red for a long time – 16 years or somewhere thereabouts. I’ve grown it out on occasion but always ended up dyeing it again. Always red. I just like red. However, the downside is that it always fades to a brassy, orange yuck color after 6 weeks and even when I do the touch up, it just seems like that nasty color always comes back, only quicker each time. This is probably due to me being both a cheapskate and doing it myself with Ms. Clairol, and me being greedy and wanting all the fun of doing it myself with Ms. Clairol. So that was a long route to tell you that after 16 years, I’ve managed to not dye my hair red until it’s all pretty much grown out.

However, there’s the problem that my hair is a pretty bland color. When people asked me what my natural color was, I liked to insist that it is a plain paper bag brown, playing up the yuck factor, but in truth, it’s not far from the truth. So while I liked having the brassy orange flavor gone, the plain yuck color was a bit grating. A few of my friends have done highlights with great success, so I’ve been thinking it over for a while. On asking James if I should get highlights, he responded, “Sure, blondes are supposed to have more fun!” Har-dee-har-har. Anyway, this is really a pitifully long story to say, I got some highlights on Saturday along with my haircut, and I like them a lot. I didn’t want to have the “striped” phenomenon that goes along with so many highlight jobs, so instead of bleaching it we choose a dark blonde shade and it’s very subtle and natural looking.

The hair cut was GREAT in the shop, and she styled it wonderfully, it was just exactly what I wanted. However, when I tried to duplicate her efforts in my own bathroom this morning, the result was something that looked kind of like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Aroooo arrooo??? what’s that Scoob? You say you want some Scooby Snacks? It isn’t pretty. I think I need to purchase yet another size of barrel brush. Next time I’m going to ask for a haircut that doesn’t require brushing while blowing dry – Therein lies the mystery!

So, I’m done talking about the hair, except to tell you about my health. I was doing pretty good, perfectly healthy. Until the hair stylist finished the ‘do and sprayed me down with some hair spray. My hair became a helmet. If I lifted one strand, the entire head of hair came up with it. It was really pretty scary. I didn’t realize what she was doing, that she was using the hair glue from hell, or I would have stopped her, there’s nothing I hate more than helmet hair, but it was too late. And worse, the hairspray that I inhaled had a immediate impact on my nasal cavities and I spent the next two days in NASAL HELL. At the Christmas party, I kept having to blow and wipe my nose and my right eye kept watering strangely. the next day I could not breathe through my nose AT ALL. Swallowing a drink of water became quite an ordeal. Luckily, today has been much better, I think due to the Claritin-D and the nyquil I took last night. (that’s right. I mixed. You’re lucky I didn’t down it all with a shot of Vodka, you wanna make something of it?!) I wonder if I am actually allergic to that brand of hairspray, but somehow I don’t think so, because even in my own bathroom, I have to spray and then RUN out of the room lest any get in my nose and cause me distress FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.

So shall I talk about the eyebrows now? No, I’m just kidding. Enough with the superficial talk. I hope you clicked on the cute image in the previous post and took a gander at the pictures from the Santa Train. Can you tell just how enamored that boy is of trains? It’s pretty cute.

Did you watch Saturday Night Live on Saturday? Or later, on your Tivo? There was one sketch that seriously made me laugh out loud. I haven’t actually laughed at an SNL bit in years, but this one did it.

Dr. Pibb + Red Vines = CRAZY DELICIOUS!

Probably not, as I try to block it from my mind. Well, not really, because if it were blocked, then I wouldn’t be able to bring it up when I want credit for working in the service industry.

I was a waitress at Denny’s. And it wasn’t just any Denny’s, it was the Denny’s in Park City, Utah. SKI RESORT DENNY’S! You’d think that wouldn’t make a difference, but I swear it does. You would think that it would make a difference on the PRO side, but you would be wrong. OH SO VERY WRONG.

I’m afraid I really really sucked at waitressing. I was OK if it wasn’t too busy. But once it gets busy, then watch out because I won’t visit your table and I’ll bring you the wrong order, and that wrong order will be COLD! I was VERY good at apologizing and giving you free stuff to compensate, however.

One thing that kind of flabbergasted me was the wide powers over the ticket that a server had. Maybe it was just my Denny’s, where we actually wrote the tickets on a ticket slip BY HAND (none of these highfalutin computer systems there, I tell you whut). I was probably 19 or 20 and just amazed that I could just give free stuff away ON MY OWN SAY-SO. I didn’t have to talk to anyone else about it, if I felt that free stuff was warranted, I could do it! OH THE POWER THAT WAS MINE! FEAR ME AND FLAGRANT USE OF GIVING AWAY FOOD FOR FREE! I suspect that my Denny’s was somewhat lenient in this regard however. Did you ever work in a restaurant? Was this how it was for you?

Even as the “worst” job I ever had, it wasn’t too bad. Mostly it was bad when it got busy and because I was new and no one else wanted to do it, I had to take the night shift from 10pm to 5:30am on Sunday night (the one night off the other night server had). It was just me and the cook, who never really talked to me, and the customers which were around until about 2am, but then not so much. I remember one man who came in at 5:45 EVERY morning on the dot. He walked in, walked straight over to the same table and sat down. I was shocked at how blatant he was. Menu? No, no menu needed. I walked over to him offered him a menu, and was informed of what he’d have instead. As soon as I got it through my skull that he’s been coming here probably longer than I’d been living in the state or maybe had even been alive, I dealt with his lack of proper restaurant behavior (no waiting to be seated! no need for a menu! no waiting for the check just money on the table and he’s gone! what am i to you, just some cheap Denny’s hooker?!!) just fine.

I had a couple of other notable jobs. I didn’t really work in high school or during the summers much, but in my junior year I got a job with my friend’s mom’s cleaning company. It was crazy good money, $8/hr, and I got to work with my friend Michael so that was fun, and we both were in choir together so we’d sing as we worked sometimes and always had fun. Once though, I almost electrocuted myself by touching some wires that were hanging out of a socket. It’s kind of amusing to think back. I remember touching them, and then I was on the floor and Michael was standing over me asking, “Are you ok?” with no time lapse in between. Very odd.

I remember another time I was electrocuted. We moved to Marysville Washington from Colorado, and while we lived in town, it was a nice little neighborhood and there was this little side street where there was a field where a horse lived. I loved horses. (Remind me to tell you about the time my friend Emily and I planned out how we were going to buy a horse when we were 14.) I would take a carrot and go to that field and stand on the bottom rung of the fence and visit with the horse. It was a very nice horse. Brown, with a white blaze on his head. One day there I was, carrot in hand, but no horse. Just inside the fence they had strung up an electric fence, just a single wire. I knew, in theory, what it was, but I was curious. I picked up some grass and dropped it on the fence. Nothing happened. I guess in my mind, I expected a cartoonish “BUZZZT!” crackle or something, but of course, nothing happened. So next, I picked some long grass and touched it with the grass. If you didn’t already know, grass is an excellent conductor! Now, the voltage running through it is pretty low, I don’t think I even lost my grip on the fence, but I definitely didn’t go touching any electric fences after that.

Well, today has been a day for rambling and remembering, it seems. I’ll just leave it at that and bid you happy Tuesday.

amy is too cool for school.

I actually reread the entire series this summer. Except the last book. It’s gone missing. If anyone has seen my copy of The Last Battle, please let me know.

As I walked out of the movie, I was filled with mixed emotion, mixed impressions. When I got home, I was still all mixed up. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. I am pretty easy to please, and just enjoy being entertained, so it is a little odd to be so perplexed about the movie. I think it can be summed up in the first scene. It’s the very first 5 minutes, so I don’t think I’m giving anything away to tell you, but if you would rather not know ANYTHING about the movie before seeing it yourself (that’s the way I am), then you may want to skip this post.

It begins from the perspective of a bomber looking down on London, and the audience follows the dropping bombs down to the buildings below. We then see a mother and her four children scurrying into a shelter, quite panicked, as is to be expected. It is all very real. Very life and death. Very turbulent. Next we see the children being packed onto a train, complete with tags attached to their coats labeling their destination, with hundreds of other children, and hundreds of parents watching them go.

The first few sentences of the book is as follows (please don’t sue me, it’s just three sentences for crying out loud):

“Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest post office.”

Do you see the difference here?

I think it can be pinned down as this: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a children’s book. And as such, it glosses over items that children do not necessarily need detailed. And it’s more than just, “It’s a children’s book.” Harry Potter is also a children’s book, but not a lot is glossed over. Lewis not only wrote a children’s book, he is telling a child a story. In the movie, there is no glossing. The audience is not necessarily a child, it could be anyone – adult or (hopefully slightly older) child alike.

Well, that’s it. That is the difference. So after hammering this out in my head, I’ve resigned myself to the innate differences these two types of media yield. I do like the movie. I just have to keep telling myself that it is a different telling of the same story. And it is the same story, and a great deal of it IS told the same way. But it will never be the same as the first time it was told to ME. Through the pages of his book(s), C. S. Lewis told me the story himself. Over and over again, through my childhood, adolescence and even now.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I will tell you that I adored little Lucy Pevensie. She was absolutely perfect. I would say second to Lucy was the White Witch. Perfect. And in no particular order because he had virtually no screen time, was the Professor. I just loved him. Stay for the credits. I’m not sure about the choice of Liam Neeson for Aslan. Not that he was bad, but the entire time I just kept thinking, “That’s Liam Neeson’s voice!” instead of paying attention. I don’t think that was what the movie was going for.

As soon as I got home, I blabbered incoherently to James about the movie for a few minutes, and then I ran to my computer to see what was going on with the next movie. And as far as I could tell, NOTHING! COME ON HOLLYWOOD! These kids are growing up! GET ON THE STICK! I can’t remember which book comes next, because nowadays they are printed up in a different order than when I read them. However, the movie uses the first book I read as the first movie. Anyone remember which one is next? I’m thinking it is the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but who knows.

Other children’s books I would love to see made into WELL DONE movies: Anything by Noel Streatfield – They’ve done The Little Princess, and The Secret Garden (both by Frances Hodgeson Burnett), it seems like Ballet Shoes should be at the front of the line. The Book of Three anyone? I would love to see that one on the big screen, and really targeted to children, rather than adult children’s movies. I’m sure I’ll think of more as time goes by. Any you’d like to see? Comment!!

amy, who adores children and young adult literature and still reads it all today

I have free time on my hands today. So shoot me.

I’ve been pondering my grown-upness lately.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely feel very grown up. Well, I take that back. I do feel grown up, when I do something grown up and did it without feeling weird that I did a grown up thing. Like phone places.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your mother called places? And it seemed like such a grown up thing to do, and how are you going to manage to grow up and CALL PLACES ON YOUR OWN without your mother to do it for you?

“Hello I’m calling about my daughter Amy. She’s had a fever and I would like to speak to a nurse about whether I should bring her in or not. Thank you.”

“Hello, this is Mrs. Xxxxxx, Amy’s mother and I need to make her an appointment for her teeth cleaning.”

“Mrs. Rawlins? Hello, it’s Mrs. Xxxxxx. I wanted to call and RSVP for Heidi’s Barbie Doll Birthday Slumber party, Amy is very excited and wouldn’t miss it.”

Grown Up phone calls were seriously something that I would tremble to think of doing. There are a variety of Grown-Up calls that need to be made through the course of one’s life, and it’s weird to think, here I am at 31, making Grown Up calls with no trouble whatsoever. In fact, when the Grown Up calls involve chewing someone out, I kind of enjoy them. Like when there is an error by some huge corporation and it affects me and isn’t my fault whatsoever, I love to call and chew them and their huge corporate asses out. See? Very Grown Up! How did I manage to do that without trembling?? The mind boggles.

I had a roommate in college named Amy (yeah, and this was the SECOND Amy that I roomed with in my college years. Phone calls were a bitch. “Hello, Amy?” “Yes..” “Oh hey, was that design thing-” “Hang on. You want the other Amy.” They were always for the other Amy. However, this Amy was really cool and I didn’t mind that she was always getting called and me not so much.) and we used to discuss things the things that we were expected to handle, now that we were grown up. Grown Up phone calls was one of them.

I still kind of cringe when there are a pile of Grown Up calls that need to be made. Even though I know how to do them now, I still wish they didn’t have to be done. There are more ways that one can resist Growing Up as well.

Throughout my formative years in my parents house, I wore jeans and t-shirts and flannel and didn’t bother much with hair or makeup except to dye it (the hair, not the makeup) red whenever possible and fiddle around with it (the hair and the makeup) when I was bored and it was fun. I often heard, “You’re going out like THAT???” from my mother, or “Can’t you do something with your hair?” that only gave fuel to fire to look as much like the flannel wearing garage band listening grungy growing-up-near-Seattle teenage was SUPPOSED to look like. I kept it up in college and my twenties except when I wasn’t allowed, like, at grown up jobs. Lots of my jobs have been at places where jeans and thermal-weave shirts (i graduated from flannel) were perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, I guess it was a few years ago that I made a conscious decision that I need to take a bit more care with my appearance. I mean, hell, I watch “What Not To Wear” – I can see that half the transformation is just a good haircut and some makeup, but even then the clothes go a long way too. The fact was, even though in my head, my strangely bleached jeans with the bottom hem lopped off (so that it would fray all cool and punk) and random t-shirts and thermal weave shirts looked totally cool and hip, the fact is I just looked weird and old and the whole “don’t bother combing your hair for three days, just shove it into a barrette or ponytail” didn’t help much. Plus, I had great skin as a teenager. People on the street would always tell me how beautiful my skin was. However, at near 30, no one was rushing up to inform me of my great skin anymore. One can’t just hop out of the shower in the morning and walk out the door looking like a Neutrogena commercial at 29.

Anyway, so I made more of an effort with my personal appearance. Which also clued me in and made me start Project Skinny, which on the whole was a lot like the whole in-my-head thing not being in ANY way proportional to my actual appearance. But lately, the whole grown up clothes and makeup and whatnot have been sliding. I think it’s because I need a haircut. You see, you go and get a haircut and the stylist gets all fancy and styles your hair with foamy mousse-y stuff and large barreled hairbrushes and pointy blow dryers and then they get out the curling irons and the hair spray and you watch really closely so that you can try to duplicate their efforts in your own bathroom and it really is kind of motivating! Look! If you spend 20 minutes on your hair, YOU TOO can look like the goddess of Love and Beauty! After I get a haircut, I’m all motivated and I think, HEY! I can do this! I can look like a grown up and not be a scrungy-on-the-outside but really thinking-i’m-so-hot-and-punk on the inside.

So first a few months go by and the motivation fades out and the hair doesn’t’ get blow dried. And then the whole makeup comes and goes. And then sometimes you don’t even bother combing your hair after you get out of the shower and so it dries in weird crazy medusa styles that look like the locks of hair are trying to escape from your head, even when you shove it up in a barrette. And start to stop bothering with the nylons because whoever invented THOSE was just sick and besides you think you’re allergic because where exactly is that RASH coming from around your knee?

Then one day you come home from work and run upstairs to change out of your grown up job clothes into comfy jeans and a t-shirt and you catch a glance at yourself in the mirror and realize that your boss is probably wondering where the ever-so-grown-up looking girl they hired a few months ago went and when did this medusa haired, not-good-skin having, non-make-up wearing, non-nylons wearing*, weird girl come from??

* instead I choose ATHLETIC ANKLE SOCKS. WITH A SKIRT. 6am is not a good hour for me to be making fashion decisions.

In short, it’s time for me to get a haircut. And thus, some motivation.

However, there is a downside to looking all grownup. That being, that if you look all grown up and responsible and very Molly, then people look at you and expect that to be what you actually are inside. But no! I want to cry, I’m not Molly! I’m not grown up! Really! I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what I’m doing with this life! It’s all an illusion! I just got a good hair-cut, that’s all I SWEAR!

It’s the same thing with the whole house issues I have. If I get my house all fixed up nice, then people will make assumptions about what kind of person I am. What if they’re wrong? What if I am not like that at all? Just because I have no idea how to choose a style for my house and pick something WRONG do I have to live with that the rest of my life?? OH THE AGONY!

Ok, that’s probably enough of amy inflicted on you for one day.

I will tell you, however, that it is supposed to SNOW TONIGHT YAY IS ME AND YAY TO THE WORLD AND PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TOWARD PANDAS!

Ooh, and everyone pray for the government to shut down, because if it DOES!!!! NO WORK FOR ME!

amy likes the feel of those latex finger grippy thingees that help you turn pages

So have you heard about the pharmacist who refused to fill a woman’s prescription?

The original livejournal post that I was reading about has since been taken down, but here are some other articles on the subject:

• Druggists refuse to give out pill
• Pharmacists’ Rights at Front Of New Debate

Seriously. This makes me want to go to school, become a pharmacist, and then PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE NOSE WHO PULLS ANY OF THIS CRAP.

Amanda Marcotte says it all so well – I have to at least quote this sentence in the last paragraph:

“Instead of openly admitting that they want to use any means necessary to force their religious beliefs on women, religious wingnuts instead are pretending that they are actually being oppressed if they are forced by law to respect others’ right to their own beliefs. They’ve convinced themselves that black is white, that they’re beliefs can only be respected if they are allowed to force them on others.”

Some more links:Ill. pharmacists withhold emergency pill – action being taken by Walgreen’s against those who refuse to fill prescriptions.

I honestly just wonder about people sometimes.

What’s even worse is when people’s wacko actions like this rub off on the non-wacko yet still religious folks. It just gives anyone religious a bad rap, and then when someone slams another’s belief system it’s humorous or OK because everyone knows that all religious people are crazy.

Why can’t everyone just let others believe what will make them happy and worry about themselves? That is seriously my motto about religion in life. If it makes you happy, and doesn’t hurt others, more power to you.

And if other beliefs make others happy, then why ruin that for them? It’s their life, not yours. If it makes them happy, then isn’t that great, that they’ve found something to believe that makes them happy? Yes! It is! It’s great! Just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean it’s not for them.

amy will step off the rickety soapbox now, because she really sucks at trying to get her opinions across anyway and it’s best left to other people.

Have you ever felt like you have so many things to do, that they are choking you, smothering you and you can’t possibly do any of them? That’s how I’ve been feeling so far this week, despite the beautiful snow – usually it snows and nothing can keep me out of the clouds, because really, snow is beautiful and wonderful and sometimes comes with the added benefit of not having to work. But while it is beautiful and wonderful, I do have to work, and I do have to clean the house and watch kids and bath kids and feed kids and answer 1 kid’s questions (which is infinitely better than the next one) and try to determine the desire that isn’t being met by the other kid who is throwing a huge tantrum and let’s not forget about the work part and the not sleeping part and the being stuck in my head with all the same old depressing thoughts and mentalities that make me just want to pull the covers up and stay put all day.

Lately I’ve been wishing that I was someone else because I’m so sick of being me. It’s not that I think my life is so awful, really I quite like my life, it’s more that I’m just so tired of being depressed by the same things over and over that if I could just swap mental faculties with someone else, their mental problems would be a refreshing change of pace. I’m bored and frustrated by my own tendencies toward depression, I guess. And generally speaking, I am not a depressed sort of person. I generally can go through my days pretty happy and contented and loving life and (oh here she goes with all the ands and no commas and what in the world did we do this Tuesday morning to deserve this Amy?!!!!) oh ok ok OK ALREADY! I’ll stop!!

So. Funny anecdotes. Nope, not in the mood for any of those. Witty anecdotes? Sorry, this is me we’re talking about and I’ve already used up my one allotted witticism for the year. Sad anecdotes? Hmmm, more in line with the mood, so I will tell you that last night when I got Jocelyn into her jammies, I put on the sort that have pants and a shirt instead of the all-one-piece-that-zips-and-has-FOOTIES!! and while it seemed fine at the time, I forgot to put socks on the girl, and at this age she doesn’t really keep her blankey on her all the time, and so this morning at 5:45 (5 minutes before my alarm went off) she woke up crying because her poor little feet were like icicles and our fucking heating system upstairs was designed by idiots because the thermostat is on our bedroom and the vents manage to actually get hot air to our bedroom while bypassing the other rooms nearly completely which results in our room becoming warm, the thermostat registering the temperature in there and turning off and thus the other rooms including the ones where our children sleep being little ice cubes. We have tinkered with the flow valve thingees up in our attic to try to shut air off from our room and push more air into the secondary bedrooms but it never seems to do any good. Any suggestions welcome. What we should do is leave their doors open at night but then we have the problem of Ethan getting up at 6:30, turning on every light switch he can find on his way to the potty which I’m sure would wake up his small sister. If of course, he didn’t just go in there (and he would, if the door is open) and holler, “WAKE UP!!” or “WOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOO!” at her. We don’t need that at 6am, don’t you think? So. Back to the original sad anecdote, my daughter’s feet were frozen half the night and she finally woke up and complained about it loudly. This is saying something, because she will stay in her bed hours after she’s woken up, just sucking her thumb and musing about world peace, probably, waiting for someone to fetch her. So James got up and went to check on her and felt her icicle feet and had to put her back in her crib while he went in search of socks because there weren’t any in her drawer because last night instead of putting away the massive amount of clean laundry like I said I was going to I was smothered by all the things I needed to do and therefore did not do any of them except wallow in a chair watching Gilmore Girls. He swore in the darkness and Jocelyn wailed in her crib where she thought she was being redeposited for good and she didn’t like that because the icicle feet had not yet been thawed and covered. I got up and went in and held her while James put her socks on and then I rocked her for a bit with her blankey all snuggly around her and told her I was sorry about the socks and she looked at me and said wisely, “Socks.” I nodded and apologized again and then she forgave me if I never let it happen again, and put her head down on my chest and breathed slowly. I held her until I really had to go get in the shower because of the whole needing to drive to work thing, and so put her back in her crib and tucked her blankey all in around her. I miss her so much sometimes. I see Ethan often, I get him up and take him to school and pick him up and take him home, but James and Jocelyn sleep a bit later and they’re still in bed when Ethan and I leave the house. So I see her in the evenings and on weekends, but I never see her during the week until Ethan and I get home and she screams, “MOMMMY!!” and throws herself at my legs until I catch her and swing her up for some bear hugging. I miss my daughter.

Boy. I’m afraid to reread what I’ve written above, but I think it’s safe to say that a tired depressed amy results in very long run-on sentences with lots of ands and no commas and not much comprehension. I think I’d better stop while I’m…. well, I don’t think I can say ahead, so I’ll just stop.

amy could use an upper this morning. damn her non-coffee drinking lameness.