Home at last!

Finally, home at last. I know, cry me a river, but who knew that a three week vacation in Hawaii could be too much.

We're tanner, actaully Sarge is "not white", fatter, well, I'm fatter, and ready for school to start.

Tanner (not white) because Piko wanted to go to the beach every day. So this was our view for about 75% of our vacation.



Piko turned out to be a swimming champ, she even learned how to use a snorkel.

Fatter, well, I'm fatter, because Sarge is a sadists and went exercising every other day. Boo-hoo for him, he gained 4 lbs, he weighed himself on the scale at the airport check in counter. I refused, because I am "Big Mama" indeed! This is the reason why.

This was my lunch one day from Aloha Poi Bowl at the Ala Moana food court. The Laulau and Kalua Pork plate lunch, with mac salad and two scoops rice.


This is my lunch 20 minutes later. It hardly looks like I had eaten anything. I had to take that big boy home and have it for breakfast a couple of times.


Genki Sushi in Kaneohe with my brother did not help either. Who can resist sushi flying at you on a conveyor belt?


Shave Ice! Only about 8 times. Sarge and I are boring and have settled on Strawberry with a scoop of ice cream as our go to flavor. And no we did not share.

And finally, grandpa's mutant fruit.

So this looks like a normal mango right?


Well, given the right scale, you can see that it's as big as Piko's head! And that's a small one. Grandpa would bring home buckets of these.

Yes, the eating was out of control.

What was not out of control however was "Hurricane" Flossie. This was the view from my parents back yard at 6pm on the night it "hit".

Some island areas got heavy rain and wind, but it did not rain at all where we were.

So now to unpack and refill my fridge.

Piko-isms

Well, we're not home yet, but I thought that I would amuse you all a little with some of the funny things that Piko has said on this vacation.

Piko and Sarge were lying in bed one morning and I came in to see what they were doing. As I was climbing onto the bed she says "Make way for BIG MAMA!". Ok, so maybe she's being sassy by calling me fat, but it was still funny. Then later while I was getting dressed to have dinner with some of my friends, I say to her, "I'm feeling a bit 'Big Mama' today". She looks at me and says "See. I told you!"

Brat.

And maybe this should fall under the category of bad parenting, but it was still funny. Piko and I were driving home from ice skating with my friends AJ, and Aunty Red (yep, there's an ice rink in Hawaii), and we were coming down the Likelike (Leekay-leekay) highway, which is very steep (it's coming off the mountain). And we saw a guy on a bicycle shoot past us. Look at that! I say, a guy on a bike on the highway! Piko looks at him and says "Is he high?" I forsee an increase in Sarge's random drug tests in the future.

Aloha!

Some useful phrases I'm trying to remember for our 12 hour , that's right 12 HOURS!!!, flight tomorrow morning!

I am filled with admiration for my in-flight meal.

Kahaha ko'u na'au i ke 'ano o ka mea 'ai ma keia mokulele.

Yumm....except we probably wont even be getting a meal.

Only six dollars for a headset? Why thats only three dollars per ear!

'Eono kala no ka ho'olohe lekio? 'O ia ho'i, 'ekolu wale no kala o kahi pepeiao!

Dude, portable DVD player, maybe the best invention EVER!!!

I'm sure you all are feeling sorry for us.

Sigh....

I saw this show advertised in a magazine and laughed and laughed.

But you know what? Sarge and I watched it the other day, and Scott Baio is totally dreamy!! Loved him recently in the movie "The Bread, My Sweet".

And he does not like people, we are totally MFEO!!!

Dinos! Again.

So I bit the bullet and bought my Dinosaur tickets.

Holy freaking $100.00!!!

Ticketmaster really sticks it to you with those "convenience" fees. Kind of luckily Sarge has to work that weekend, so we only have to shell out for 2 tickets.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom taking me and my brother to see shows all the time. Ice Capades, Kapaza(Japanese children's theatre), Circus, musicals, the ballet, all kinds of things. I really have to remember to thank her for spending so much time and money on my cultural enrichment.

Piko seems pretty excited about the show. We watched the videos that are posted on the site. There's one about the "Making Of" the dinosaurs, so it was good for her to see that they are just extremely large and lifelike puppets. Or parade floats as she likes to call them. What age do kids begin to separate fantasy from reality? real vs. not real. We watch the Nigel Marvin "Walking With..." shows on Animal Planet and Discovery all the time, and that stuff looks real, and Nigel(an adult), and the other actors interact with them like they are real. I know that she knows that cartoons are not real, but what about CG stuff that really does looks like it actually exists?

Anyway, we'll see what it's all about soon enough. Well, not soon, the show is not until September 22!!

Jumping on the meme bandwagon after reading Mrs. S's post today.

5 Maybe, somewhat, kind of interesting things about me.

1. I have a birthmark on the white of my right eye. People think I have something in my eye all the time. And I have only met one other person who also has a birthmark on her eye.

2. I can pick up just about anything with my toes. It has to be between the size of a golf ball and a dime. And it looks like Piko is inheriting the "monkey toes" skilz.

3. I grew up in Hawaii, lived there till I was 26 and have never been surfing. Not once, ever.

4. I have in my lifetime used an oxy/acetylene torch, cetrifugal casting rig, TIG welder, and MIG welding setup. I have blown glass, poured bronze, and silver, and made my own wood carving tools from scratch. But I still need the Librarian to hook up my entertainment center.

5. I have never ever been stumbling, falling down, passed out drunk. And that's probably a good thing.

And the cat?

The mocking continues. Hey, I was reading that!

deGallo Photolog

Nothing exciting around the home this week, the weather has been nice so Piko and I have been at the pool alot.

But here are some of the semi-interesting pictures I took this week. I was going to type "photos" but that sounds like I think that they're art, and they sooooo are not.


The Damn Cat. She's not fat, but look at that pooch! It's hanging over the edge of my desk!!


The Damn Cat again. This is proof that she loves Sarge. She would never let anyone else sit with her like this. I have always told Sarge that he picked out the dog, and she was supposed to be his pet, but she loves me more. And now, I got a cat, and she's supposed to be mine, but she loves him. Darn animals! Making me crazy!

Ok, when I took this picture I thought it looked funny, as if Piko had a big butt. Then I loaded it onto my computer and looked at it in a larger format, and realized it just looks like Piko is sitting on a giant blue Va-jay-jay. Naughty pillows indeed!

And Sarge sent me this picture in an e-mail.

Hee-hee, LOLERSKATES!!!

de Gallo Dilemma

Holy Poo! The Dinosaurs are coming!!!

I am seriously torn about getting tickets to see this.

On one hand Piko loves dinosaurs, she got the Nigel Marvin "Prehistoric Park" and "Chased By Dinosaurs" DVD's for her birthday, and loves them.

On the other hand, how will she react to "real" dinosaurs?! I will be bummed and well, a bit cheesed off if she freaks out and we have to leave. The tickets are not that cheap.

I have no doubt she'll go totally bananas and shiny at the idea. But once we're there with the dark, and the loud, and the lights...
What to do....what to do...

So I was thinking the other day that the last movie that I actually saw in the theatre was "March of the Penguins", and this was with Piko (her first movie theatre movie). We don't even go to see the latest animated movies. I think that I have mentioned before that Piko is a freak and does not enjoy cartoons very much. Apparently any sort of "bad guy" in an animated movie is scary to her, and you know that there is always a "bad guy". We'll watch Shark Week on Discovery Channel no problem, but no cartoons! EVAH!!!

Anyhoo, though we don't go to the movies I'm always reading the movie/entertainment section in the newspaper. Just to torture myself I guess. I began noticing a weird trend in recent movie poster art. The actors look nothing like themselves. Maybe it's just the way the images transfer to the newsprint, I don't know.
Here is the first example of when I noticed it. "Meet the Fockers" poster.

Ben Stiller's face looks like it's made out of clay, and I know that Blythe Danner is much more beautiful than that. It looks like they all have way too much make up on, which could actually be the case. Strangely though, Babs and Dustin look pretty normal.
Then in the last week or so I noticed the phenomenon again with the "License to Wed" poster.

What's up with Mandy Moore's neck!?! And again Robin Williams...somewhat normal.
Are these just awful translations (Vectors?) by the graphic artists? And if you were the actor/actress wouldn't you be pretty upset by the most unflattering image of you plastered all over the place?

Something else that caught my eye once was this poster with Hilary Swank in "The Reaping"

Brought to mind this poster


Ok, maybe now that they are right next to each other they don't look all *that* similar. But still, kind of right?

LOVE this movie by the way. I have horrible taste, I know. Gotta love campy, awful, techno-apocolyptical, virus-runs-rampant, sci-fi horror movies. Especially if they feature Oded Fehr, and redheaded hotties like Stefan Hayes (yum!). And Mila Jovovich totally kicks butt!

"Vanity is the quicksand of reason"
-George Sand

Oh Google vanity search has really done me in this time. Revealing exactly what I have found will reveal a bit more personal information than I would like. But let me share a couple of the gems I discovered tonight.

My college ex-boyfriend has resurfaced. Yes Jacy, this is the one with the Casper Van Dien smile, the motorcycle, and the penis that would not stay in his shorts. Apparently he is running his own personal training business in Las Vegas. That's pretty great I must say, he is doing a job that he always wanted to do (apparently the professional wrestling gig did not pan out...seriously), and enjoys. On the other hand at 5'10" and 210lbs, he does not look at all like the boy I dated in college. AND, looks nothing like Casper Van Dien anymore, thank goodness. Just plain weird.

Second, and worse!!! I have just discovered that my last name is a somewhat popular slang term for:

"...any person who is of the white trash/thug/inbred genus. Standard accoutrements include but are not limited to gaudy chains, wife beaters, garishly baggy pants/shorts, Lugz, visors, and various other urban brands such as Ecko or FUBU. Often seen in camaros or over-accessorized japanese cars. Almost always seen smoking "cigs" or at least smells as though one has been bathing in cigarette smoke. As far as other bathing is concerned, the ****** is lacking. Disgusting facial hair such as the molestache, crustache, or White Trash Stache are commonplace and seemingly required. "Dood, Toight, Sooo Wasted," and "Cigs" are standard vocabulary. Can be spotted at malls, 2 Fast 2 Furious movie premiers, and in Sonic parking lots. Music choices involve one of two genres. They enjoy bad popular rap such as 50 Cent and Eminem or nu-metal in the vein of linkin park and slipknot."

Hi-yi-yi!!! Basically the Chavs of the Americas!

Note to self: NO MORE GOOGLE VANITY SEARCHES!!!!!

Why Is This Cat So Mad?

Look at her, she's all "Mrrrrrwow! RRRRROWWWW!!!" Ears back, eyes narrow.
(Click on photos to enlarge them.)

She even turned away from me when I was taking pictures. Look at that tail flick.

Coulld it be...
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THESE?!?!

"FINE!" she says, "I shall sit down and let you see my poor paws!! Have you seen what they have done to my poor paws?!?!?"

"OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!! I'm just going to claw this blanket with frustration!!! AWW MAN!! What have you done to me?!"

BAH! Shopping rant!

Piko de G and I trekked out to the commissary this morning to restock our 'fridge with something more than frozen hamburgers, sliced tomatoes, and soda.

We got rock star parking right up front, and all was looking well. I should have known it would only go downhill from there.

Today was shopping cart derby day in the aisles. Just about everywhere we went carts were parked strategically sideways, or in the smack dab middle of the aisle.

In the spice section there were about 6 people in a group blocking half the lane, and their carts were along the other half. Basically causing what M. Sarge would refer to as a "Cluster F**K", making me say WTF? And they were all apparently together, and arguing the merits of garlic salt vs. garlic flakes! Move out of the damn aisle!!

As we were moving towards the dairy area there was a lady parked horizontally across the lane. As if she were turning around and getting ready to head back in the other direction, and then decided that that would be a totally AWESOME place to stop and have a 5 minute "chat" with her friend who was all the way down by the orange juice. NOT. SO. MUCH!!!!

Finally, getting in line to pay. UGH, please move your damn cart 2 inches closer to the checkout so I can get past, thankyouverymuch! This lady was with her two older teen looking children and was leaning on the back of her cart while the kids were unloading it onto the belt. There were three other registers open down past her, and we were trying to get past. She leaned, her kids unpacked, looked at me, unpacked more, she leaned more. I said excuse me about 4 times, Piko de G even said excuse me. She leaned some more. FINALLY, she gets out of the way, by backing up into my cart. "Oops I was trying to get out of the way, and ended up getting in the way. Tee-hee!" I just gave her my 1,000 mile stare and said "Uh-huh". Then Piko de G being 5 said really loudly "SHE DID GET IN THE WAY!!!" as we finally passed them. Nice.

Another question, when the heck did it become a good idea to allow a 6 year old to "drive" a full shopping cart? If they're going to *DRIVE* it into the back of my ankles, I'm going to have to *DRIVE* my foot up their.....

This is what I get for going at 10:30 instead of 8:30.

Happy Birthday Piko de Gallo!!

Here are some pictures from Piko's Golf Birthday party.
It was not held on her actual birthday, but since the grandma's were here, we decided to have the party early.

The cake. Don't tell anyone, but the dog came right up to the cake and put her nose on the left corner. Oops. Extra frosting right there!
The bottom is a 10x10 square, and the ball is the Wilton soccer ball cake pan. I used a grass tip for the grass, and white chocolate melts for the dimples on the ball. If I had had the time or the inclination to do a test cake, I think that I would have gone with two ball cakes just to give that ball a little bit more lift out of the "grass"

Golf trophies for the participants.

Tee off.

Windmill house.


We have a winner! She wouldn't kiss the cup like Tiger Woods does.


This was a great party, and everyone had a good time. The grandmas were happy because I gave them jobs to do, M. Sarge was happy because he got to play golf with his daughter, Piko de G was happy because she got cake and presents. And I was happy because she was happy. That said, M. Sarge and I agreed that this is the last big party we will be having for her. It's just too much work, and Piko de G gets too many presents. There was a moment when M. Sarge almost flipped out at a crowd of 4 and 5 year olds because they would not back away from the cake. He had to use his "Big Voice" to get them to move back and form an orderly line. I asked him if he wanted me to schedule his vasectomy the next day.

Just wondering...

What the heck should I do with these tomatoes? I cut them up for M. Sarges BBQ, but they were barely touched. I had some today and they seemed fine, but what the heck should I make with them. Let me note that neither M. Sarge or Piko are particularly fond of straight tomatoes.


And, YAY SCIENCE! Piko de G and I celebrated the 4th with a new stomp air rocket.



What a crappy photographer I am.

There's more! In-Law Rant Part 2

Oh yes, there's more. This one got pretty TL;DR, so unless you like petty bitching, I would just skip it.
I am such a raging bee-yach, and it took all my powers not to fly off the handle this weekend.
Continuing the In-Law tirade...

**POST REMOVED**

Ok, I've decided to remove this post. Thinking about the weekend is still kind of upsetting, but overall, they are very nice people, and they ARE my family now.
August 2007

What the?!!!

HUGE SIGH!
My house is my own again, the invasion is over.

M. Sarge's mom and grandmother came to visit us for 4 days, to be here for M. Sarge's promotion to Master Sergeant. His dad could not get off from work so he stayed home.



**POST REMOVED**
Due to the fact that I'm an asshole and should not be bashing my family on-line. No matter if they know about it or not, because even though they irritate me, I really do love them.
August 2007.

AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

In-Laws.

de Gallo Milestones

Oh we have many to report today!!

Milestone #1: Kindergarten registration (and I managed to only forget one important document)!! Piko de G is going to school next year!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! That's my excitement. Not hers. She's a bit unsure of the "big kid school", and of going every day. I'm planning on staying home at least one more year so that I can volunteer at her school alot, and hopefully make her transition easier, without being a helicopter parent. Well, that and the fact that the school is not in the best area, nor does it get the greatest of recommendations from other parents. BUT, we are determined to give public school a chance.

Milestone #2: Big girl's jump from the side of the big kid pool! Yes, that's right, Miss. "I-don't-like-to-get-my-face-wet" actually jumped from the edge of the big kid pool. Huzza!!!

Milestone #3: SWIMMING IN THE BIG KID POOL WITHOUT A LIFE JACKET!!!
That's right, you heard me. Holy poo on a stick! It was great! She still has a bit of a hard time when she has to come up for air, but she swims a good 3-4 feet from the stairs to my arms.

Ok, so the swimming milestones are more for the folks that actually know Piko de G IRL. Let me 'splain. Piko was a child that up to the age of 2.5 could not stand to have her hair washed. Seriously it was like trying to wash a cat. I don't know why it took me so long to come up with a method that worked, the "Magic Towel". It was just a wash cloth or hand towel that she held over her face so that the water would not get on it. She hated the pool, but liked the beach, I guess since it was sort of shallow and there was sand. Something changed though last year late in the swimming season. She started liking it. And this year, Ba-da-BOOM! Swimming. I'm so proud of her, I could burst.

Now The Librarian's nickname for her really fits. "Little Fish"

Oh yeah!

I did have some news to write about. And I totally forgot!

We had HAIL!!


It was quite nutty. I have some video of it pummeling our van. We were a bit worried, but there was no damage. We would have felt like right fools if we finally had a garage, and our car was dented by hail.

Six years we have been living in this area, and this is the first time we have ever seen it. Weird.

It's 1:30am and I'm up coughing a lung out.

Freakin-A I hope that the NyQuil kicks in soon because I'm tired.

So, nothing much to talk about at the de Gallo camp. The move is finally totally and completely over, we are checked out and cleared from the old place. All ten fingers and toes accounted for. For now.

The Librarian came for a visit last week. I love her. LOVE HER! She got me an early birthday present. A MASSAGE! What perfect timing. We usually go for a mutual massage day for our birthdays sometime during the summer. This year though I got together with a bunch of my other friends and bought her some of those Bose noise cancelling headphones for her trip to Africa. Well, she decided that since she had traveled half way around the world, and I moved my entire house myself (well, at least half of it), we should go get our massages anyway. And she treated. I love her, did I mention that already? Well, I usually come away from a massage feeling relaxed, but not feeling like my knots and kinks were worked out. Well, let me tell you, this time the masseuse pummeled me. And it was gooooood. But being me, my massage was only three days ago, and again I'm all crunchy and tensed up again. Poo!!

I almost forgot to post this too. In addition to the headphones, I made The Librarian a quilt. I only have photos of it before I backed it, and quilted it, because I was going to take a picture of her and Piko de G sitting on it or something. And of course I forgot. Here it is hanging at our old place.

I love the way that it looks with the sun shining through it, like a stained glass window.

It's called "The Librarian is Charming", because it's made with Heather Bailey Freshcut "Charms". I have to get a picture of it finshed. I want one for myself. I think I should make another one.

Ooookay, the NyQuil is kicking in.

M. Sarge almost made an Air Force Widow out of me today.

We finally moved the washer and dryer to the new(ish) house, and as I was fiddling around with the stuff that was around the laundry M. Sarge was removing the 4 prong electrics that were attached to the dryer. The new(ish) house has a 3 prong outlet, and luckily we have a 3 prong cord.

I'm sure you can see where this is all going.

I'm around the corner from the laundry area and I see a bright flash and hear a loud bang. HOLY CRAP!!! WHAT WAS THAT?!?!?

Apparently M. Sarge wanted to make sure that the 3 prong plug actually fit into the outlet, so he plugged it in.

PLUGGED IT IN WITHOUT GROUNDING IT.

He's fine. I'm sure he has lost some of the hair on his hand, but other than a new healthy respect for Mr. Electricity, business as usual.

On a high note, we now know where the fuse box is.

Loving Day

So I'm a day late, but every day is Loving Day at our house. Piko is the beautiful product of an interracial marriage. It is quite strange to think that only 40 years ago, M. Sarge and I would not have been able to legally marry.

Here are a couple of unusually similar photos of my family and M.Sarge's. Strangely they were both taken at our respective Grandmother's houses, probably around the same year, 1976 or 1977.



I think that my brother is holding a bag full of mangoes from my Grandma's tree, my dad took a cutting from that tree before the house was sold, and has another tree grown at his house. There is nothing like a warm mango picked right off the tree on a summer afternoon.


Check it! M. Sarge's dad is wearing PLAID PANTS!!!

The Cat Has Arrived!

She does not look happy.
So I guess we are officially moved.
Now to put everything away.

More Moving 411

We are a go for transferring cable to our new(ish) place tomorrow.

Mrs. S, I know you're crossing your fingers for me in hopes I get "Butt-Crack Comcast Tech!".

We had to inform Piko de G that there would probably be no TV for a couple of days. "No TV for Piko de G?" she says. She has started referring to herself in the third person, and I'm not sure if it's cute and funny, or irritating and babyish yet.
So yes, I had to inform her that we will be missing out on our 11 am, pre-lunch Mythbusters fix for the next couple of days.

And yeah, still hating the moving.

My friend Jacy is lauding the benefits of exercise to banish personal demons.

And I agree, there is nothing like an hour at the gym sweating your pores out, and concentrating on yourself to make you feel good.

M. Sarge has great plans of eventually turning his new cave into a home gym, so he does not need leave home to do weights. He's such an awesome husband and dad that I thought that I would surprise him with these Blast Straps to get him started. Are those exercise redonks or what?

I personally prefer actually going to the gym, which is now located almost directly behind our house. I could probably jog there in less than 5 minutes. Some day I'll get up the gumption to post pictures of myself at my brother's wedding, and me now.

I

HATE

MOVING!

That is all.

Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho! Moving house we go!!

Well, Sarge is now Master Sarge. Well, he's really MSgt. Sarge. 'Cause he ain't no master of me. Anyhoo...

We decided to see if we could squeeze a bigger house out of the housing office on base, and they offered us one. It's quite older than our current townhouse, but it has 4 bedrooms, and A GARAGE!!!!

Piko was excited that the minivan would have a "room of it's own", but of course you know that garage is being made over into the Batcave. Sarge has already bought a mini-fridge. I am so glad that he is not a beer drinker, or I know we would have a Kegerator. Hmmm......I wonder if they make a Whiskyrator?

So we will be real busy. I have to transplant my garden, and yeah, there's all that pesky moving of stuff that we have to do. I guess I don't have to go to the gym this week.

Oh Wal-Mart, why you gotta do me like that?

So after a not-so-quick stop at the post office this morning (1 clerk, one customer at the desk, I was 1st in line, 20 minute wait) I head on over to Wal-Mart for this item. Sarge has found that his addiction to Vicks inhalers has caused a resistance to it's effects, and I'm suffering from seasonal allergies for the first time in my life. So hey, why not shoot some saline up your nose?

But of course they don't have it.

So I wander around and eventually see these!

Those buttons!!! SO CUTE!! Cannot resist! Could I make some cuffs?
Fabric, $1.00 a yard!! AAAA!!! Maybe I'll make some of these cute tanktops. How about matchy-matchy, mother-daughter tanks for our trip to Hawaii? They would also be great as quilt bindings.

And there's already this stack of projects just waiting to be started.


Oh Wal-Mart, how I love you.

And this is why I don't have friends

Well, not friends IRL, here in my immediate area. I do of course have old college friends like The Librarian, and blog-o-sphere e-friends.

Anyhoo, there is a mother of one of the girls that goes to pre-school with Piko. I guess you could say that we are friends. Our girls like to hang out together, and have fun. The Mom and I enjoy each others company and for the past 3 or 4 months have made plans after school and on the occasional weekend. She would call me when she was bored at work, and I would attempt to give her gym advice, and listen to her marital problems.

This mom is almost 10 years younger than I am, not that it matters, but I guess it's worth mentioning. So, her husband and Sarge work in the same field, but not in the same office, or on the same shift. Sarge also outranks him, so I'm sure that it makes him a little uncomfortable to socialize with us. Well, Sarge would rather not socialize with anyone, so it really is a non-issue.

I guess being young, the Mom is a little unhappy with where her life is going, or not going I guess. She is not quite 25, has 2 young children, stays home most of the day, and works at a retail job in the evenings several times a week. (I'm not knocking retail at all, I made my bones at a large multi-national book selling chain.) She mentioned to me that sometimes she lies in bed at night and thinks "So is this it? This is the rest of my life?" I'm guessing that she does not have any hobbies that she alone does that do not involve her husband or children. Which I believe is the key to my sanity and general happiness.

So what does this have to do with friends?

Well, recently there was an incident at Sarge's work. It's kind of a sensitive subject, and not something that should be getting around the base. Sarge told me about it, and he knows that I know better than to discuss his job and the doings on there with anyone else. I'm just the one person that he can talk with about things that are bothering him or stressing him out at work. It's basically my job, and it's one that I'm happy to do. And I'm careful to protect his confidence, or he may decide he has to keep all of his stress inside, and that's not healthy for anyone.

Well, the Mom mentions the incident to me one afternoon, and says that she heard about it from a friend of a friend who works at Sarge's office, and they were trying to find out if it was true, and who exactly was involved. Well naturally she had already asked her husband about it, and he got pretty upset that they were discussing the incident outside the office, and actively attempting to verify it. To me, other than being a sounding board for my husband, it really was none of my business. I claimed ignorance about the whole thing.

Ok, so now I have to go home and tell Sarge the scuttlebutt that is going around the base. He's not mad, but a little concerned that people should be discussing sensitive issues with us civilians in such an inappropriate manner, and he wants the Mom's husband to call him. Just to verify the people involved in this little chain of gossip. Lucky me, I get to tell the Mom that Sarge wants to talk to her husband about it.

This was about a week ago. We usually go to gymnastics or ice skating once a week together, and the kids usually have an afternoon play date, and this week. Nothing. I called her a couple of times to see if they wanted to come to the pool with us, or just to see what she was doing. Nope, too busy, too lazy, just gave the kids a bath. Excuses, excuses. I feel like I'm back in school, and I just don't have time for that kind of juvenile BS. The only one who is really going to lose out in this is Piko, because she wont get to see her friend anymore.

I suspect that her husband was quite ticked off at her for even asking him about it the first time, and then got even more upset at her for talking about it to me. And then to top it all off, my husband is one of the people directly involved in the incident (not that she knew that). And now she's mad at me. I guess I can kind of understand why, but really? I apologized to her just in case she was mad that I mentioned it to Sarge, and I made sure to mention to her husband that Sarge did not think that he was involved in the gossip.


Sarge feels bad, because as he puts it:
"I would hate for you to lose your *ONE* friend" And he really did emphasize the "one". Yeah thanks for your concern Sarge, but I just don't need that kind of shit.

So was I wrong to tell Sarge about it? Am I in the wrong at all?

Le Sigh, only one more week of pre-school, and then I guess it won't even be an issue anymore since they won't be going to the same kindergarten.

PAY ATTENTION!!!

Just a minor annoyance from the E-Bay world.

I've been listing a hoop of needlepoint canvases that I am brokering for a friend of a friend. Why is it that people do not read auction details?!?! I think I get about 8 or so emails asking if I combine shipping. DUH!! It says so right there!! What is the canvas count?? UM, 13, LIKE IT SAYS IN THE AUCTION!!!

AAAAAGH!! FRACKING PAY ATTENTION!!!!

But thanks for looking!! :)

Go Pies!

Now I know that this is an old game I'm talking about. We get them quite delayed here in the US.

My Pies came out ahead tonight after a nail biter of a first half against the Carlton Blues, 17.17 (119) to 14.11 (95)

The big news of the night though is that my favorite (hot) player Shane Wakelin kicked his first goal for the Pies in 121 games! Woooo!!! He's mainly a defensive player, usually on team goal, so he does not see that much of that end of the pitch.
Go Shane!

Edited to add this picture to prove to SheSaid that he is not a bear!


And another observation I made.
This is Travis Cloke

He's got a bit of "Greg Sanders" going on. Don't you think?

Maybe just me, but that's all I can think of whenever I watch him play. Ok, that's not *all* I think about.

de Gallo Dielemma

Darn kindergarten all to heck!! It's really messing up our travel plans! We really have to plan ahead now, and can't just take off whenever we want for however long we want to.

Just kidding!! I love that Piko is starting school. LOVE IT!!

Anyhoo, that is not the dilemma we(I)are having.

Booster seats.

We are traveling to Hawaii late in the summer to visit my family, and of course we don't pack up our booster seat for the trip. We have to make sure that there is room in the baggage allotment for GOLF CLUBS!! Anyway, I'm having my mom buy us a booster seat for our use while we're there, and then they can keep it at their house for whenever we come and visit. We used to have our old car seat there, but I'm sure that Piko 1) will not fit in it anymore, and 2) it will be more than 5 years old when we get there.

So, I'm wondering, all you parents out there in Bloggerland. Should I go with a full back booster? Like this

Or do the no back booster like this?


I looked around on the net, and did not really find any info that would lead me to believe that one is any safer than the other. Piko by the way is 38lbs, and 41" tall.

My gut instinct is to go with the full back model, it just seems safer to me. But the no back one is about 1/2 the price. Not that price is an issue when it comes to safety for my Pwessous Wittle Purl. Just that if both are equal in safety, then why not save a couple of bucks, and then Sarge and I can get popcorn while we watch TRANSFORMERS!! IN THE THEATRE!! Gads, I love family babysitters.

NICE!

Once again, via Strollerderby.

Piko de Gallo was quite the Laurie Berkner enthusiast in her earlier days, so it cracks me up to no ends to see this.

Mother's packing secrets.

For She Said.

Just the day after you had posted your part 2 sort of rant regarding packaging, my mom sends me a package.
Here she demonstrates her "green" packing method.

Yay! A package from Grams!! It's books!


And food!



Cookies!!

Not just any cookies either, CHOCOLATE DIPPED SHORTBREAD!!!!


Bloody fracking hell! I go to the gym for a reason WOMAN!
I love you mom.

So, OW! Right?

That's the tip of my index finger on my right hand, and my thumb. It's really all my fault. I refuse to wear a thimble when I sew, and I just finished this.

A pretty green quilt for my pretty green girl. This is only my second fully finished quilt ever. I have made others before, but I was very lazy about them. This time I was very careful with my cuts, tried to mind my seam allowances, and almost all of my patches lined up. I guess it does not really matter that much with this pattern, but I am getting alot better. And I also freehand, hand quilted it, which led to the lovely fingertip. I played around with the width of the binding, and went with 5 inches, but I think that I prefer a thinner edge, it is easier to finish, and I think I like a tighter rolled sort of look. I know that pink and red binding does not really go, but that's the fabric she picked out for it. As she said:
"Green is my favorite color, but I like pink and red too."

It made the perfect stage curtain today for an impromptu concert.

And then later for a nap.

Gone Fishin'

Well, not exactly, but it's SUMMER!
So we've been outside alot lately.




Be back soon with my Mother's day story.

Not Perfect

Piko's annoying habits. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that my child is not perfect. For one, she does not like potatoes. Not even french fries!!! She's an alien I swear!! She would also rather watch Mythbusters (Science YAY!), Surprise By Design (She loves that Robert Birdie), or Take Home Chef (Takes after mom, likes that Aussie accent)all day than anything else on TV. I'm actually quite glad of that, because The Wonder Pets have rotted my brain, Joe wears too much makeup, and she never wants to watch Lazytown and that hottie Sporticus.

Anyway, on to the annoying. And this is just a sample of the past couple of days.

The inability to close a door quietly. This has become more pronounced ever since Sarge had begun working nights. She'll be up in the morning, and I'll hear her opening and closing her door. Not quietly either, there must be some level of satisfaction with not quite slamming it, but closing it firmly. And to add another level of annoying gooeyness, she does a double close. You know, where the door bounces off the jam, and you have to pull it back again to close it. Then, there's something about the door knob that seems to fascinate her, sometimes I'll just hear "rattle, rat-rat-RATTLE, CLICK!!! rattle, rattle, CLICK! CLICK!!!!" AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stating the obvious. Yes, I know she's 5, and that's what 5 year olds do. But this happens almost every morning. I'll get up, and see what she's doing, and then tell her I'm going downstairs to let the dog out. I come down, let Dog out, boot up the old claptrap of a compuper, get the morning paper, start the coffee. 20 minutes later, from the top of the stairs I'll hear:
"Mommy?.....Mommy......Mommy! Mommy?"
"YEEEES!?!"
"Are you downstairs?"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sometimes I'll get sarcastic and say no. But she's too smart for me! Can't trick her!
"YES YOU ARE!!!!!!"
Oh crap, Sarge is trying to sleep!

And what's up with not remembering to
1. Wipe after going #1
2. Flush the toilet
3. Wash your hands?
And then topping it off by coming back outside with the whole front of her dress stuffed into her underwear. OK, that last part is kind of funny. But I'm getting awfully tired of finding logs in the pool at bedtime that have been there since 7am.

de Gallo Family Dynamics

This is actually hilariously funny now, but trust me it was not funny when it happened.

Last night Sarge came home to get his dinner, and after he left I let Dog de Gallo out to do her nightly business. She came back in and then started upstairs as I was making the rounds locking doors, and turning off lights. She waited for me on the landing, and we started up to the bedroom.

I didn't really see what happened next, but caught the tail end of it.

The Cat came out of nowhere, and jumped on Dog. All I saw was teeth and claws. Cat did not actually get Dog, but she sure scared her. I guess Cat is usually in Piko's room when Dog and I go to bed, so Dog was not expecting the sneak attack. Poor Dog runs right into our bedroom and onto her bed. Cat went the other direction into the guest room.

A bit later as I'm settling in to do the crossword in bed (highlight of my day >dorky!<), it smells like poo! What the hell? Why does it smell like poo? I go check out the litter box, but that's not it, I just cleaned it. Get back into bed, must be my imagination. No, it still smells like poo. So I start looking around.

DOG! Why is there a nugget of poo on your bed!! Have you been eating your poo again?! CRAP!!! I stepped in it!!! F**K!!! IT'S ON THE BED!!!!! MOTHER LOVING...$#@**!!!!

So I'm traveling the upstairs scrubbing bits of poo off the carpet, stripping the bed, wiping Dog's butt. I checked her feet thinking that maybe she stepped on a fresh one when she went out. Nope, it was dingle berries, hanging on. Nice.

I had to remake the bed (which I hate doing on a regular non-poo day), set the poo sheets in the wash to soak overnight. Though I'm not sure I'll ever be able to use those sheets again. Wash my feet and hands, and change my clothes. Ugh. And then I was not able to finish the crossword.

Sarge gets into bed this morning, and I tell him that the cat literally scared the shit out of the dog. He can't stop laughing, and honestly neither can I.

Poor Dog, we have got to get rid of this cat.

Mother's Day Crap

Stroller Derby has a funny ongoing set of articles about the crap jewelry out there being offered for Mother's Day.

And I agree, that crap is FUU-uuuuugly!! Although I have to fess up that Sarge and I bought his mom and grandmother those birthstone pendants.

I remember the first Mother's Day after having Piko de G, Sarge and I were reading the Sunday paper, and I was looking at the advertising inserts. I warned him that he should never, ever, EVER! even think about buying me a "#1 MOM" anything. Barf. I would much rather prefer a bag of Lindt Dark Chocolate truffles. BLUE!! BLUE WRAPPER!!

Actually don't get me jewelry ever. I know, I'm crazy!

I'm not saying that Sarge has bad taste in jewelry, that is simply not the case. He has a very simple classic taste, and chooses items that have a longevity to them. And, it's not like I don't like jewelry, I like it very much. The thing is that I already have a ring for each hand, a very nice Hawaiian Bracelet(though it does not say Kuuipo), and some great pendants and chains. I'm afraid if I wear too much jewelry I'll end up looking like the teller at my bank. She has a ring(sometimes several) on each finger of both hands, about 30 bracelets on each arm, and enough bling around her neck to make Mr. T jealous. Not so much the look I'm going for. Jewelry is also such an expensive gift, that's a lot of money to spend on something I might not like, or use too often.

If you want to spend some buck on me, and make me happy buy me this, and give me a whole, uninterrupted day to go crazy on it! YEAH!

I'm so easy.

Sarge's "No-Friends Barrier"

How I ever managed to marry a man even more anti-social than I am is a true mystery to me.

I have witnessed Sarge's "No-Friends Barrier" technique in person. I have heard tell of it based on descriptions given of my husband (people say he's really quiet, act all surprise when I tell them he's a barrel of laughs), but never have I witnessed it first hand. Until now.

This happened the other day while we were out in our back yard enjoying the nice weather, and freshly mown grass. Our neighbor wandered over to chat with us. The neighbor works in the same area as Sarge, but on a different "team", different "job", and different schedule. Sarge also out-ranks him, but is not his direct supervisor.

Anyhoo. The method.

The neighbor was talking about something, and mentioned Sarge as an example. He does not call Sarge, "Sarge". He calls him "Master Sargeant de Gallo". In fact I have noticed that he always calls him that whenever we see him. He lives right next door, we see him all the time, and I don't imagine them moving anytime soon.

That would be like if a mother of one of Piko's friends called me Mrs. de Gallo all the time instead of using my fist name. Weird.

Later I asked Sarge why he didn't just tell the neighbor to call him Sarge.
"Nope" he says, "that just encourages friendliness, and I just don't need that."

I know that he needs to maintain a certain level of separation between himself and another person of a lower rank, but wow. Just wow. I have to bow down to that level of Anti.