Oh, oh, oh noooooooooo

Lizzie made a snowman that looks remarkably like Mr. Bill. She is very proud of this snowman -- she wanted me to get a small plate stand so I could display it properly -- then she decided, no, it needs to be on a soft kleenex for safe keeping, and it should stay on my dresser, and quarters, yes, surrounding it with quarters will give it that shrine like feel so you know this is one extraordinary snowman.

And so it is.

Self deception

After I take the kids to school today I'm going back to bed.

It's true -- every word of it -- truth.

Mmmmm, bed -- me in it -- that's right and correct.

Dissed by a kindergartener

I help out with my kids' computer classes and I was helping this one girl fill in her rainbow when I accidentally filled in her background, then couldn't undo it. Of course it happened with this child -- she's the highest strung of the group and immediately went into a panic. I assured her that it could be handled and worse case scenario I would make a new page that would require zero work from her -- this meant no extra work for her.

Hailey didn't seem too convinced and got a little more wound up with each of my failed attempts to rectify the situation. Finally she says, "maybe you're not as smart a mom as I thought you were."

Zow! Score 1 for Hailey.

I tried not to laugh as I once again assured her that life as we know it will continue -- I explained that even smart people make mistakes and that I was smart enough to save her picture -- smart enough even, to know when I'd been licked by a simple painting program -- smart enough to know when to get Mrs. Fladell to fix it.

The jungle room

I did a room at a home and garden show last year (maybe two years ago?). I wasn't quite ready to go into business just yet, but Rich does these shows for our retaining wall business and the coordinator was panicked when California Closets pulled out at the last minute -- so I did a jungle room. I had three weeks to pull it together, which was no easy task with kids still at home.

The jungle room was inspired by the camouflage wall I did in Frankie's room (which I love because if you look at it long enough it's like lava lamp. And oops on posting his wall picture twice, but I can't figure out how to remove it).

I didn't have time to do the full fat blobs as it takes a while and I only had two work days to set up and paint -- which was fun because I got to pretend I was on extreme home makeover (I can't believe they do that in a week and the muralists have a day to get those walls painted.).

The white dresser with the faux stone and copper top was already done. The giraffe cabinet was road kill that Rich brought home for me (great score!). The corner cabinet is a painted thing from Target -- which I need to redo because it's in my living room now (as is the chair and giraffe thing) -- it may be great for a kids room, but with all three pieces in use it's a bit more jungle than I want for my living room.

The hooks, shelves and candlesticks where all whipped up for the room as well.

I have to say, if you ever get a chance to work a home show, go for it -- it was like being an upscale carni. The booth behind me was hawking these rubber brooms ("the last broom you'll ever need. If you own a hair salon it's a must have...") -- that women gathered a crowd -- I had much desire to take over for her a time or two. Her or the ladder guy -- holy Ron Popeil -- you never saw so many people buying a thousand dollar ladder in your life.

I bonded with the ring cleaning couple who had the booth next to Rich's -- I totally brought in some people for them -- if I'd only had a bullhorn I could have gotten them all!

Tooth Fairey should skip it

I saw Rein Over Me last night and while I did cry -- hard -- twice (any parent would -- the manipulation was blatant when I was so hoping for subtle -- it could have been so much more) -- it was a great story idea but I couldn't fully commit myself to Adam Sandler's disturbed character because he kept talking in his baby talk voice, or as *Tooth Fairey put it, "In almost every movie he has to adopt some kind of simpering cartoon voice that varies between "cutesy" to moron...".

I usually like the simperings of Adam Sandler, but it was too distracting for this roll -- it prevented me from believing that this was once a guy with a regular life -- the baby talk was a constant reminder that I was watching Adam Sandler and not a guy who lost his entire family plus one dog.

There was also a disturbed beautiful woman in the movie and she too played it like the psychological snap had turned her into a child. Her intro scenes were fine and she had one scene where she talked like a struggling grown up, but the rest -- it was like some movies where someone is trying to portray a retarded person and they think all they have to do is act like a little kid.

When I think of disturbed people, I don't think "I'm a baby, oh I'm small and vulnerable like a little baby" -- no, think Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted or Bob Geldof in The Wall (shaving off nipples? - Disturbed human being. Talking like a baby? -- Annoying Human being -- see the difference?).

I still like Adam Sandler, there were moments where he tapped in, unfortunately, he went in and out of it. Don Cheadle and Jada Pinket were also surprisingly flat and unconvincing.

With so much unrealized potential in this movie, much of the fault has to go to the director (whomever it was -- I know not) . I would have to say, Reign Over Me was a potentially great story told by someone who didn't dig deep enough .

There is enough there if you are looking for something to munch popcorn to -- go see it, but if you are searching for a haunting and heartfelt human drama -- skip it.

* I don't know how to link to my own posts -- to read Tooth Fairey's complete thoughts on Adam Sandler click the January 2007 archive and check the comments on the "Dear Blog" post.

Flamingos of Madison

Taken at the zoo.

"Turn me on dead man"

I used to dream of hiring a chef once I make my millions, but now I dream of owning a number 9.

Just for today, I wish I were set designer

I paint things and last night I had a dream about the coolest wall finish.

In my dream this whole room was all deep blues and greens in a glazed tie dye effect, there was a traditional stencil over top of it, like a wallpaper, done in subtle metallic silvers. Sounds a bit much, I know, that's why I wish I were a set designer because it would be perfect for a Real World or Bad Girls type setting.

Perhaps because we (my friend and soon to be business partner) just finished painting Rich's backdrop (the one you see here) for the home show and have been staring at silvers over blue all day -- but I'm telling you -- this tie dye wall in dreamland was the shiz-nizzy.

Did I ever tell you about the time I slapped that down's syndrome kid?

I did -- I usually put that on my resume right after the "threw shoes at dog who barked too much" (it was a bigger dog -- he ducked).

But about slapping that kid -- Stewie was a guy who washed dishes for the restaurant I used to work at. My nickname at the time was "Punky" due to one bad hair day and a cook who decided it made me look like Punky Brewster. To this day people from that place call me Punky.

Stewie.

Stewie was always on the flirty side, but this particular day he took things a bit too far. There were several of us on break at the time -- we were all chatting, eating or smoking -- the usual break room stuff before the world went smoke free. Well, in a sudden burst of uncontrolled impulse, Stewie decided to go for my goods -- in a one swift motion he leaned over and drove his hand up my skirt and struck gold! In a -- get your hand off of my crotch -- kind of reaction, I open hand slapped him across the face.

It was a very loud slap.

His hand quickly retreated from my south and flew to hold the side of his own stinging face. We all froze into statues except for the eyes which looked the question to me, "Oh my God, did you just slap Stewie?!" Then over to Stewie, "Oh crap, is he going to cry?"

Nobody took a breath for several loooong seconds. The first to move was Stewie -- he began to rub his cheek and then he said, "Close shave Punky, close shave".

We all laughed -- whew!

I decided that the next time a challenged someone makes a move up my skirt, I'm just going to grab their hand away and say, "keep your hand off my crotch".