Laughing in my sleep at my funny brother-in-law

Rich woke me last night because he thought I was having a nightmare and was crying in my sleep, but I was laughing.

In my dream I was at some "unplugged" type of concert. The singer from Def Leopard was there and Dave Thomas -- many different singers taking turns singing -- it was an odd mix --I even thought so in my dream.

The part that got me laughing was when they called an intermission. I was at the show with my brother-in-law and we had to walk across the stage to get to the restrooms. As we were walking across the stage, looking at the microphones, I told Dave he should sing and he said, "I can't rap without my wig."

Apparently I thought that was pretty funny. I couldn't stop laughing even after Rich woke me up.

It's out

She was hoping it would come out at school so she could get one of those little plastic treasure chests that they keep in the health room for just such an occasion. By all means it should have come out at school -- that sucker was super loose when she got home today -- with the promise of a smoothie-pop and a quick push on the tooth from mom -- it was out.

She is calling everyone to herald her big news.

Congratulations busy-Beth. Tooth Fairy -- get on it.

Signs of aging?

While cruising around the radio dial I came upon a mellow tune which was heavy on the xylophone -- I liked it quite a bit.

Am I turning into my grandpa Davis? He's always been an easy listener -- it used to wreak havoc on my teenage central nervous system. Seriously, the bugs would try to escape my bone marrow every time I had to endure a ride in the car with him and that jazzy radio.

Up, up and awa-aay -- in my beautiful, my beautiful ba-loooon.

First loose tooth

Lizzie has her first loose tooth. It's another one of the last firsts for my kids.

I'm only briefly caught up in the bitter part of the sweet -- there's not a lot of time for reflection because Lizzie gives me updates on the status of her tooth about once a minute.

She's so excited. This is her first real loose tooth. She tells everyone it's her 8th loose tooth because she has wanted to loose a tooth so badly that she has been convincing herself of loose teeth for months now.

"Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" samplings

After reading a post on the diffuclties of parenting I began to think of my favorite song on parenting, which in turn -- made me want to listen to my favorite song on parenting.

Turns out -- I don't own that CD. I think it was a loner and has since been returned. I must get my own copy soon.

In the meantime, I googled the song and found the html version of the lyrics: see new sidebar feature.

I also found a few mp3 snippets of the song, each a different part of the song -- if you string them together in order it's almost the whole thing (okay, cut off the end a verse, maybe miss an entire verse -- but almost).

This is like poor man's downloading, or too much time on my hands downloading, but fun for me, none the less.

The fruits of my surfing: Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,

3--2--1...Launch

My multi-talented sister has launched her new website for her photography business.

Lucky are the Chicagoland people (and those willing to travel for excellence and priceless photographic keepsakes of their children).

She wins "most creative Christmas card" every year among our large and very creative family of Christmas card sending folk. We don't have an official contest, but if you judge by -- card most commented on at family gatherings -- well, it'd be the one she made.

All Christmas card asides, aside -- go see for yourself why I have some of the coolest black and white photos of my kids and family (color ones too, but I love the B/W).

It's good to have a high caliber photographer in the family.

Yeti, Nessi, UFO's, and Chupacabra are to conspiracy theorists as Naps are to me

I thought I used to nap and it was something I really liked, but the evidence against their existence is mounting -- I'm pretty sure I made the whole idea up in my head.


Just one nap and I'll believe.

What's smaller than an X-box?

Meet Gurty -- the bionic puppy (we rebuilt her, we had the technology).

I will post more of Gurty's story later -- today is introduction day. However, I will tell you that in the five weeks since getting Gurty from a rural animal shelter, several ethical and spiritual questions have been raised.

All deep thinking aside -- isn't she cute?!

She's no 130lb rottweiler mix, that's for sure -- we went the other way this time. She is part pug, which is something I said I would not do whole part.

She snivels stuff off the ground like that old pug did, but I have hope that things will be different this time around -- especially that her eyeballs stay in her head. I wasn't exactly sober much of the time I owned Roxanne -- I think Gurty has gotten better training in five weeks than Roxy did in five years, so that's a plus.

We were told that her mom was a pug/rat terrier mix and her dad was all rat terrier. She comes from Amish folk. I think they were going for one of the new designer dogs out there. To be a true designer mutt, she would have to be 50/50 from pure bread parents, but she looks enough like one of the controversial pooches to provoke unsolicited negative comments from dog purists (too bad it happened to Rich and they missed out on the chance to play a little game I like to call, "fun with ignorant people").

She's a gas. She's got moves -- quick, rabbit/cat like moves. She's a fast learner and like all puppies -- she's very naughty. And she's soft, so so soft -- silky in parts even -- and I think you can see the velvet nature of her ears in the pictures.

She's addicting -- when you see the puppy, you must pet the puppy -- and maybe squeeeeze, but just a little bit because she's 4 pounds and would crush to death if you didn't show some restraint.

Play is a little different from how it worked with the rotti, definitely can't mix it up like we used to with Izzy, again --this dog would die. She's a goofball and we are learning to bring things down a notch -- it's a different kind of fun and we are loving it. Of course we will never replace Iz, that's why we went for different (can I use the word different one more time?).

Last for now, she's neutral colors thus goes with everything -- I see now how the little dogs wind up as accessories.

Yesterday I was the only person on the internet

It's not often that I fritter away a bunch of time then regret it. Even if I should have better prioritized my day, I can usually find a way to be okay with not having done so.

I can sell myself on having needed some down time, or on the fact that I was entertained, or go for the tried and true simplicity of, "so what?" or "fuck it".

Yesterday I did the surfing equivalent of throwing good money after bad -- I followed one bad link after another to the tune of, most of my day.

What happened was, I finally filled out some profile information then became curious about who else might like Better off Dead or Augusten Burroughs.

I tell you, there are many, many dead blogs out there. Blogger's idea of "recently updated" is anything from 2004. Not 2004 and beyond, just: 2004. I think I read from two blogs that were still active -- the majority were from people who posted an average of 5 entries then gave up on blogging --rightly so -- I will add for the sake of explaining much of my regret.

The cementing part of my regret comes from continuing through the wasteland (for hours!). Usually, blog surfing ends in a payoff -- I kept pulling that handle expecting to see BAR -- BAR -- BAR, but it kept coming up LEMON -- CHERRY -- BELL. I had found the land of inarticulate Kierkegaards and it was vast.

I learned that the type of person who doesn't stick with blogging is very pessimistic about the human race. I think they probably started blogging in an effort to let us know how much we suck and how we should go about saving ourselves -- they seemed to quickly conclude we were too stupid to take their advice, then stopped blogging -- I can only assume it was to go slit their wrists.

Wouldn't it suck if you really did go to hell for listening to Hall and Oats?

"What the?!..."

"In 1977 while riding the bus to school, you thoroughly enjoyed Rich Girl when it played on the radio. You were in the fifth grade which put you above the --get out of Hell free-- age of 7. You never repentented, so here you are -- welcome to Hell."

"Hell?! For Hall and Oats?"

"It's a bitch girl."

Don't eat an entire pint of ice cream for breakfast

You will feel a little sick for a while if you do.

I had a dream that my favorite coffee cup cracked all over and then broke

I have plenty of other coffee cups -- even so -- I was very upset.