Corbin the nephew: "There's more customers coming!"

I ate too much candy, as usual.  But it was worth it.  It always is.

Happy

Halloween!!

"Ugh, I can't wait until Halloween is OVER. Then we can buy all the candy we want for super cheap!!" - overheard at bonfire in the mts.

I'm pretty sure this is the main reason people ever have kids and a hooch:

Good enough for a second place ribbon!

Happy Halloweener!

"The only thought I had, growing up, was Get... Candy. That was my only thought, in my brain, for the first 10 years of human life. Just get canny, get canny, get canny, get canny, get canny, get canny. Family, friends, school, these were just obstacles in the way of getting more candy.

So the first time you hear the concept of Halloween, when you're a kid - remember the first time you even heard about it, it's like... your brain can't even... "What is this?! Who's giving out canny, someone's giving out canny?! Who is giving out this candy?! EVERYONE THAT WE KNOW?!!! I gotta be a part of this, take me with you, I wanna do it, I'll do anything that they want...! I can wear that! I'll wear anything that I have to wear. I'll do anything I have to do. I will get the candy from these fools that are so stupidly giving it away."  - J.S.

I still have this same emotion towards candy.

The truth is scary

[Listening to a girl tell about the time she saw someone hit a dog and put it in their car and rush off to what she thinks was the vet]

"I assume vet, but probably dump." - BAB 

Dog tales

My grandpa found the little black puppy and  named it Cuddles. When my grandma came home, she found Cuddles tied to the bed with a little string and my grandpa napping alongside his new pal. No wonder she loved that man.

Ours is a High Game

And by high I mean 'close to the ceiling.'  JAN noted this at our last racquetball excursion.  It's like we pretend we're giants, or like to keep it close to the heavens, or aren't super skilled.

Either way I love it.

Oh Kanye. And I don't mean that in no nice way.

Remember the Kanye ballerina video, where all the pretty white ballerinas are performing and you're like Where are the black people?

Oh, of course. The African Queen and her royal court. The white people are just entertainment.

I love you eve eve seog day

Oh, to be a 1st grade teacher.

If only you didn't have to wear big beaded necklaces and jumpers.

(The hugging is also a bit much.) But, you do get precious cards like this one I saw on the wall:

Translation:

Mrs. Weber, I love you Mrs. Weber. I love you every every single day.

Bus Tales, thanks for doing it quietly.

Someone sitting behind me on the bus had been practicing his evil laugh all weekend and continued to do so on the bus ride this morn.  I would give him an 8 out of 10 only because it lacked originality.

Animal Cruelty

The best part about the circus was the down-trodden hippies protesting outside. They had a few posters (which didn't seem like much effort went into the production. and the "shocking" pictures didn't look like the elephant was having that bad of a time) and tried to pass out DVDs to the kids. "Here, kids, you wanna have a bad time? Watch this video." PFFFFFF. Everybody just ignored them as we all were giddy. Everyone had the hugest grins on our faces because Hey, dummies! Did you know that there's a circus going on in here?! You should buy some tickets right over there and join the fun! THERE'S COTTON CANDY TO BE GOBBLED (in the most befitting location on earth)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The American

Yeah, I thought the most admirable character was the hooker. (as opposed to the assassin who only "made" the guns. and often used them). So sue me.

"Ooo, the baby did NOT like that toy...

... probably because it reminds her of the rat that sneaks into her room at night."
"And tells her scary stories."

Flyboy

This is my grammie and my pa. He was taking flying lesson and that mini-Gump took his mom for a ride. But here's where the story turns into a saga: to pay for the flight school he had to take another job. Which left him little time to do homework. And also little time to sleep. So, he slept in class. Then he got a bad grade in math that year and M.I.T. would forever deny his wish to be an astronaut. It's fine though. He's a successful and good man. These days, whenever I talk about a shuttle explosion, he gets a wistful look in his eye and says,

"Man. That'd be a way to go."

My grams isn't doing so good. If you think of it, send a little prayer for some comfort and peace until she gets to go back up.

"It's like a normal night club, only Gayer."

We got an official invite to ping pong night at Tracks.

The best news is, it starts at 5pm, so we can still all be in bed by 9!

Oh Decepticons.

Autobans: "We were a peaceful nation of robots"

SNORT! ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

25 years and a few hours older.

It’s my birthday. And I brought peaches and yogurt for breakfast, having raced out the door towards the middle school I’m subbing for. Almost late, the usual.

Alas, the peach juice spilled all over my lunch bag and there are no paper towels anywhere. Only thin tissues. Literally, tissue paper. I’m sitting here looking at the mess, and I have a flashback to when I was on a field trip in 6th grade and my apple sauce exploded all over my brown sack. As a 6th grader, I panicked. What the fudge was I going to do!? The sauce was everywhere! Sooo sticky and sweet and cinnamony. I couldn’t just sit there and lick clean my hands and ziplock bags like a kitten in front of my friends. Middle schoolers are creative in cruelty. Like hell I was going to put myself on the spot and go ask a teacher to lend a helpful hand. So, I continued to panic and just kind of tried to ignore that there was applesauce all over everything, in-between my fingers. That moment was recorded in my mental diary as: Trauma level 7, The Worst Lunch I Ever Had.

Here I am, 25 years old, and the same g.d. thing has happened. Although, this morning, I had a beautiful sunrise chasing me and I couldn’t help but shout thank you’s for my family and friends and families of friends and oh-my boyfriend. A thank you for my handmade bookshelf. A thank you for the dinner I get to have tonight with two people who occupy large spaces of my heart. A thank you for a job I generally enjoy right now. A thank you for the fact that each year, I become more at peace, more happy, more excited about the life I am living.

A quarter of a century IS a long time. But, my God, is it nice to be here and be so in love with it all. At 25 years, I’m licking peach juice off my hands. And it’s utterly delightful.

 

A dream come true.

Free reign to the p.e. supply closet.

You better believe I headed straight for the rubber chickens

and the parachute.

Turns out, teaching elementary p.e. is the pits.

The firey pits of hell. 

It feels a little like Seinfeld.

Meet my new trainer, Pop-pa: He's 80 years old and recently acquired a Facebook.

Through the use of resistance bands we will make my 25 year old hips as non-creaky as his.

1990's Mickey Mouse ice cream bars

Makes my mouth water just remembering these things.

You'll have a Dalmatian Plantation, will you?

Right. And Animal Control will swiftly be all up on your butt to sentence you for hoarding.

And then one September day, he became Mr.

This was the part at Jeff's wedding where we broke down. No, not into awesome moves that usually require hightops and parachute pants, but into tears. For the memories of Old Chicago nights and the knowledge that none of us will ever get to marry Jeff now; his beard is no longer ours to rub.

Congratulations to our sweet Bernsie!

The greatest show on earth

Great early surprise birthday present this year, which will be hard for you all to beat. The CIRCUS!! Where I got to eat buckets of popcorn and bags of cotton candy, and had the best seat in the house: right between the cutest boyfriend in the whole wide world and a chubby little mexican boy with a fiber-optic mohawk. Man oh man.

(He got mad at me after he looked up and told me he didn't want to eat the $12 tiger-mug snowcone and I said, "Eat some of the ice! It's sooo good!" and he said, "NNNOOOO! I. don't. want. it."
"Sheesh. Ok, don't eat it.")

(But I think he forgave me because at the end of the night I put on my pink plastic pigtail wig and asked him how I looked
and he squirmed, "I don't know!"
"Do I look pretty?" 
He nodded and ran to his dad.)

There's always somebody drunk on the bus.

I hope one day that somebody is me.

Mood Music

I was walking to the store and got a little entertainment from an accordion player sitting outside a music shop.  

And I thought to myself, "Man, I wish my cousins hadn't quit accordion school."