Waiting with baited breath...

I know you are all wanting an update and funny anecdotes...it's coming, I swear! Swamped today at work, but I'll try and post something this afternoon with a few choice photos. Miss you all...

"The Real World" DC...

Oh my. Have I mentioned that I LOVE having boys?? You pregnant friends of mine? Sucks to be you, because middle school girls? They're crazy. Now is the time of the trip when all of the girls have started spending just a leettle too much time together. Cattiness is starting, feelings are getting hurt, gossiping and pouting and sulking commence. Sweet Jesus on the Metro...it's more than I can take.

You would all be very proud of me. No cussing in the van. Well, not that anyone can hear me. The kids are mostly not on my nerves...save for one, who shall remain nameless, but let's just say that this girl wouldn't know happy if I drew her a picture. I can deal with a lot of things...whiny 8th grade girl isn't one of them. Suck it up, Sally - it's the trip of a lifetime that you didn't even have to PAY for. Please. Try...just try...and be HAPPY. Ugh.

But today, today was classic Rebecca. Okay...so we're going to the White House and Congress. It's a metro day. She specifically said she'd like us all to be a little more dressed up. I asked if this might be the day to wear cute shoes over comfortable shoes. Absolutely she said. Hm. We were supposed to metro to the White House, and then metro to the capital building. Somewhere along the way, after I put on my strappy shoes...after the White House. The plan changed. We walked it. WALKED IT. Are you hearing me? Do you understand the way our nation's capital is designed?? The capital building and the White House are on OPPOSITE ENDS of the city. OPPOSITE ENDS by design! And the sidewalks in DC? They're not cement. They're this composite stony garbage that when you're walking in sneakers? Brilliant. When you're hoofing it across DC in strappy shoes? Sucky as hell. I wanted to light myself on fire.

And here's where you'll be proud of me. All the crabby moms in their sensible shoes who hate me? I had to pretend like this walk was no big deal. "Aren't your feet killing you??" they would ask... "I can't believe you wore those shoes." Nooooooo, I'm fiiiiiiiine! I wear heels all the time. No way was I giving them their smug satisfaction that I was anything less than completely thrilled with my decision to wear my strappy shoes on our fancy day. Inside? Dying. Dy-ing. But smiling. SMILING. My dogs were not just barking or howling - they were on fire. En fuego as my dearly departed Toni used to say. I could not believe we WALKED that and then had to walk all over the capital. This was not supposed to happen.

As if it's not bad enough I'm on this trip with a bunch of boisterous Republicans (no offense to my Republican readers. I love you...I do. I don't understand you...but I love you.) The big joke of the night? Someone saw a t-shirt that said "Friends don't let friends vote for Democrats."

Well hardy-har friggin' har. My mouth is bleeding, but I said nothing. Apparently Dick Durbin, the Democratic Senator from Illinois was at Mt. Vernon at the same time we were today. Several of them made comments about how they saw him, wanted to shove him down the hill and/or walk up to him and tell him about how they DON'T pray for him at night. I couldn't even make this up. REALLY? REALLY???? If they start saying anything about Obama, I'm going to lose it. And it won't be pretty.

Needless to say I was so glad to have some time away from the group in Old Towne Alexandria tonight. Alex and I found a nice little thai restaurant. We had a good meal, bought him some clothes for graduation, spent some one on one time together chatting and walking the town. It was really nice.

That's all for now. I did buy some wine at the Miche Tavern yesterday. Four bottles. We'll see if they all make it home.......after today, I'm not so sure I can hold out until the end of the week.

Miss me yet??

Hi guys! Greetings from our nation's capital. Alex and I are here on fabulous Washington, DC field trip and WOW has it been an adventure already. There's so much I could talk about! We're keeping a fast pace here. I'll sum up quickly and try to follow up with funny anecdotes later. I just now got to a place where I could even attempt to try sitting down on my laptop. Everyone is running out of space on their digital cameras, so I'm downloading all of their pics to my laptop and burning them to disc for them so they an erase and have space for the next day. SO MUCH TO SEE!

Saturday: Old Post Office with trip to the top of the clock tower, chance happening on the Spring Garden tour of the White House. Only happens TWICE per year - I was within spitting distance of the Oval...took a lot of restraint not to test that distance. Next Holocaust Museum, Arlington Cemetary. There's something else from that night - see I'm already forgetting.

Sunday: Iwo Jima Memorial (found accidentally because I missed our turn...yes, I'm driving one of the vans and I'm the LEAD van), Gettysburg. Unbelieveable. Must go back there. Vietnam Wall, Lincoln Memorial after dark, Korean War memorial VERY cool at night.

Monday: Ford's Theatre, Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, tour of the Pentagon. Loved getting to see how money is made. At one point I was standing right in front of $64 million dollars. MILLION. Yowzers.

We're averaging 4 miles a day walking. 4 MILES. My dogs are howling, kids. I could spend weeks here and never feel like I've seen everything. We're riding the metro, and I must say, DC really has this public transportation thing down. It's so very cool.

It's a family affair....

And we have a brand new shiny member of our blogging family to welcome today!!! Happy birthday in the truest sense to Paige Renee - born this morning to the young Kathy and her husband, Eric. Paige is 8 lbs, 20 1/2 inches long, has a head full of newborn hair, perfect skin, new baby smell and is, of course, beautiful. She is, after all, my illegitimate love child.

Phew! I'm so glad THAT'S over and this baby finally has a name.

On to less important matters...

Dear sweet blogging family that I love - I leave this weekend for the DC trip...you know - the trip I never got to take in my youth. As long as I have wi-fi, I will be blogging from our nation's capitol. We've been given very strict instructions on how we, as adults, are expected to behave as chaperones. Alex's teacher was VERY specific about reminding us that this is NOT a vacation, this is a FIELD TRIP. So that means we have to worry about school rules and image and shit like that. I guess since this isn't a vacation, I don't get to start the morning with a bloody mary, move into marguaritas for lunch and end with dirty martinis...in other words, I can't act like EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS. HA! That was funny right there, I don't care who you are.

Seriously - I can't drink...I can't wear shirts with spaghetti straps or short shorts or ripped jeans or flip flops. Ummmmm...why am I going on this fucking trip? Actually the only part that concerns me is the flip flop thing. Those of you that know me know that the sisters prevent any spaghetti strap action from EVER happening in this lifetime, and I don't even wear regular shorts let alone some flippin' daisy dukes. And I can, if necessary, keep myself off the hooch. But really? REALLY? Stick me with 8th graders all day and you don't think I need a glass of red before bed?? What about my New Year's resolution??? Anyway, she doesn't actually care if we wear flip-flops - only when we're going to the White House, but we'll be doing SO much walking that it's probably not a good idea. Bugger. They're easier to pack.

She also said that no one needs to try and stand out and be "the fun parent." "We're all fun" she said. Ummmmm, no...you're not, actually. Some of these people wouldn't know fun if I showed them a map on how to get there. She was specifically referring to a dad a few years back who rented movies in the hotel room every night of their stay and kept the kids up until 2am. Okay, that's not my idea of fun...lack of sleep? Notsomuch. Lack of sleep for 8th graders? Definitely not a good time. I am an avid supporter of sleep...ask my scouts who HATE me when I make them go in the tents when other boys are still up and being rowdy.

I plan on bringing games with me. I plan on bringing Uno and Blink and Yahtzee and cards. I was even thinking about bringing my Texas Hold Em set and letting them bet with Cheetos. I'm bringing along every skit I've ever done with Scouts. I was thinking about picking up some foam visors like we did on fabulous beach vacation. If I got one for each kid it would cost me a whopping $6. We're going to have some down-time and I like my teenagers AMUSED! That's okay, right? Dontcha think? As long as I enforce proper bed times?? I don't think I know how NOT to be the fun mom. Julie would do the same thing...I know she would.

Cheer up sleepy jean...

So once again, I've tried to blog several times to no avail. In the wake of this national tragedy, I'm finding it difficult to find the funny. This is becoming like 9.11 to me, where the intense, never-ending media blitz is engulfing me, depressing me...how about you? I just can't imagine! And the news that someone was actually concerned - granted, this was 2 years ago - but concerned about him enough to alert the police? That's some seriously scary stuff he must have written. So what happens now?

On a much lighter note - acupuncture today, kids. I'm very excited to go see Minna again. I haven't taken ibuprofen in 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS. That's HUGE for me.

AND I'm ... sing it with me now... all by myself....all by MYSELF....the young Kathy has left the building. Tomorrow morning at this time we will have a new edition to our blogging family. A baby girl - who's name is....yeah, I have no idea. Kathy has beaten this horse to death, pardon the reference, my horse-loving baby-having friend. I've stopped asking "does she have a name" and started asking "what's the frontrunner today?" I don't think she'll know what to name her until she sees her. I have a feeling she'll come to some conclusion in the morning and then change it again once she's born. It happened to her. She was supposed to be...wait for it...a REBECCA. Yeah, that's right. A Rebecca. hahahaha. And at the last minute she became a Katherine.

Also worth mentioning...we're halfway through chemo with Carol now. Hi Carol! "Chemo with Carol" sounds like a bad talk show on discovery health. She's bald as a baby but doing okay. Carol, my mom and I talk frequently and are frequently relaying information back and forth between each other. On Monday, Carol was telling me that my 90-year-old Grandma is having trouble with her balance and keeps falling. My uncle wants her to start using a cane. She won't. So I relay this information to my mother.
"Hey mom - you might want to talk to Carol, Grandma keeps falling all the time."
"She keeps falling? Why is she falling??"
"I don't know? Because she's 90? Talk to Carol."

Fast forward to yesterday. I get an email from my mom. She's emailing Carol to see what's going on with Grandma. She wants to know why grandma is crying so much.

Last night I talk to Carol again and she asks me about the crying. I have no idea. "She's not crying when I talk to her...she must be crying with my mom." Carol and I have at least a 10 minute conversation about how grandma must be more worried about Carol than we think and blah-blah-blah-discussion-cakes. Carol says she'll talk to Grandma.

Now I talk to my mom. I tell her that I talked to Carol. We don't understand the crying.
"Does she cry every time she talks to you?" I ask
"She's not crying with me" says mom
"Then why are you asking about crying??"
"Because of what you said the other day!"
"What did I say the other day?? I never said she was crying!"
"Rebecca, you told me that Carol told you that grandma was bawling all the time."

OH MY GOD. I didn't say BAWLING, I said FALLING. I said she's FALLING all the time - as in losing her balance because she's 90 friggin years old!!!

At this point my mom and I lose it. For the love, are you kidding me?? Laughing my ass off. Here we're all getting all concerned about grandma because she's crying all the time - and it's not even friggin' happening. Carol and I have now decided that all important information must be in email form only. I'm glad I didn't call my grandma on this one. Can you imagine? The conversation with an already forgetful 90-year-old about her crying and being upset when she's not? THAT would go over well.

Oy.

Get off my bruised back, man!

So I know - I suck. I'm a bad, bad blogger. You can't give me any more guilt than I've already given myself. I used to be Catholic for cripes sake.

I've started two different posts this week, but there was a problem. They were horrible. They weren't funny, they lacked anything interesting. Some would argue that most of my posts are that way and I've still managed to keep the the blog going for over a year. (chick-chick-boom! mra3=dork [that was for you katmat])

It's Friday the 13th, kiddies. *insert scary movie music here* Julie's birthday is on the 13th, so every now and again her birthday falls on a Friday the 13th *insert tinkling piano AND scary movie music here*. One year, and I think it was actually her 13th birthday *insert dramatic duhn-duhn-duhn music here* we rented every Jason movie there was and had a slumber party. Back then I was tough. Back then I could handle the blood-n-guts scary movies. Oh who am I kidding...Julie's brothers had to walk me halfway home for YEARS. Still do. I'm a huge scared-of-the-dark-frady-cat sissy. *insert canned laughter here...and pointing*

I can no longer watch scary movies. They freak me out. In fact, I'll share my neuroses a little further. Most of you already know this, but I really do believe that there are "killers" that follow me and are just waiting for me to be
a) alone in the dark outside
b) locking the basement door when it's late and therefore dark outside
c) getting something out of my car in the garage when it's late and dark.

And these aren't The Killers, mind you - because that would be awesome. (I want a lunchbox with Brandon Flowers pictures on it. I love you Brandon, call me.) Yes, I have their button on my jean jacket. Don't you judge me! Have you seen him? He's dreamy cute and I love their songs and oh my, it's John Taylor from Duran Duran all over again. I'm sick, I know. Shut up.

Back to the OTHER killers...lowercase k...they live somewhere around my barn, I think. I'm not sure, I've never actually seen them. They're sneaky. And I just know that if...well, let's say that I do "a)" and go outside when it's dark and scary all by myself. They are going to stalk me in the shadows, possibly whispering, wait until I'm totally freaking out with the hairs raised on the back of my neck, and then jump out of the darkness and mutilate me and put me in my trunk. Actually, that's the way all 3 scenarios end. And the death is long and torturous and drawn out. I'm not even sure if they're men or women, but they're out there. And they follow me. Like not only can I absolutely NOT go outside in the dark in MY house, I also cannot go outside in the dark at YOUR house. Not by myself anyway. Not going to happen, not unless you want me dripping my blood out of my trunk and onto your driveway. Do you want that? Do you???

I've been close to death a couple of times now. I've actually teased the killers and gone outside in the dark by myself and gotten to the hairs raised on the back of my neck part, which is after the the stalking and whispering part! Close calls - because we all know what comes next! The jumping out of the darkness and mutilating me part. Luckily I escaped by running back to the house screaming. That's how you scare them off. That's a free tip from me to you if ever you're confronted by the killers in the dark.

So happy Friday the 13th everyone. Snuggle under a blanket and watch a good romantic comedy tonight. Forget that scary stuff - it's overrated. Besides, you can come to my house anytime you want and hang out with REAL killers. Geesh.

*ETA: Click on the Eileen link to see her latest entry in her local paper. She blames ME for her Idol addiction. The nerve! You can't blame someone else for your own lack of willpower, Eileen. It's time you took responsibility for YOU.

Baby Got Back!

Okay, you know I love you guys - because I am about to post half naked pictures of myself. When I told Kev-head that I needed him to take pictures of my back because I wanted everyone to see my cupping marks ... his response? "Your blog is turning into porn site!" Ummmm what? And then quickly followed it up with "I might have to read it more." Okay, Mr. Funnyman...whatever, let's go take some pics! NO ONE is allowed to make fun of my pale skin, my tan-lines, my bra marks, my freckles or my back fat.

Are we clear about the rules?

Good...here we go...
According to Kevin and the girls here in the office who have seen the one at the very very top...it actually looks worse in person. But still, it doesn't hurt. I swear. I still have some tightness in my sore shoulder, but not as bad as it was. I need to stretch and drink more water. duh.

Now for the bad. Screaming, raging, hellacious migraine last night. Wanted to die. Visual impairment, dry heaves, ice pick headaches all leading up to the main event, the vice gripping unyielding light-yourself-on-fire, pray-for-death migraine. I'm still not all the way over it today, my right temple is still hurting a bit. New naturopathic doctor says my metabolic by-products must have flowed into my head. I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound good. I'm more than willing to ride this one out. I've ridden everything else out...brutal massage therapy sessions that left me in tears, chiropractors adjusting me and making me hurt MORE, physcial therapy hell, MRI's, multiple x-rays, yadda-yadda-yadda. Sometimes you have to take the bad to get the good. So we'll wait it out and see what happens. In the meantime she said maybe we won't do the cupping next time, just the acupuncture.

I think I'm okay with that...

Go shorty, it's your birthday, we're gonna party like it's your birthday...

What am I doing today??? Getting poked and getting hickeys!! Hooray!!

WHAT? Has Rebecca lost her fucking mind??

No kids...I haven't. I went in for acupuncture and cupping today. I didn't know about the cupping part until I got there. For those of you unaware, my shoulder problem has been flaring up again. Not wanting to go back to the den of torture called physical therapy and take even more prescription anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxers with who-knows-how-many long term side effects, I decided to break up with Western medicine and try a new approach.

I was nervous about the acupuncture...I've never had a problem with needles, but I've also never voluntarily stuck a dozen of them in various places on my body and left them there for 20 minutes. I didn't even feel them. I kind of felt her pushing them in, but while I was laying there I didn't feel a thing...well, that's not true - the one on my neck just below my hairline was itching a bit. Then she said she wanted to do some cupping....mmmmmmm, yeah...okay, sure, why not. I remember Gwyneth from some news story where she showed up with circular bruises on her back. I wanna be like Gwyneth - let's go.

Yeah, her bruises were small...mine? BASEBALL size or bigger. All over. No, it didn't hurt. It sure looks like it did, but it didn't. I swear I'm going to have Kevin take pictures tonight so I can post them tomorrrow. It looks wickedly worse than it feels. It promotes blood flow and movement of bodily fluids and Qi ... don't you want your blood and your Qi flowing??? I know I sure do. I could use a little more Qi or Chi or whatever you want to call it.

Overall my natural healing experience was a positive one, and I really like this naturopath. She sent me home with some natural remedies (which cost me all of $25, I can't even buy a 10-day supply of prescriptions on that, let alone a month), some dietary changes and overall I feel really good right now.

Other than the giant hickies...