Ah, the election...and thoughts

"I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.



OK, much clearer now".

Um, really?

One of our local sports newscasters who happens to have an awesome job, as he gets to go to the Beijing Olympics, also has the most annoying promo on his station. Said person is Eric Perkins, who I like in general, but in his Olympics promo he says about reporting from the Olympics (he's been to the last couple of them at least) that he "uses a lot of words and phrases when I report on the Olympics." Oh, um, really? You use a lot of words and um, phrases when you...speak? How ingenious of you! Apparently every other reporter has it all wrong! I'll definitely tune in to his broadcasts! Hmmm....

I'm back, and mad about something!

Oh my head, I can't believe I haven't written anything in soooo long. What's up with that? Well, it's been busy, I've been busy at work which sometimes makes me craaazy, and now that summer is here, a lot to do outside and such. We actually have planted a veggie garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, and eggplants and everything is doing very well! I just figured out that the tomato plants are indeterminate plants, didn't know what that was, but now know I need to prune them back like crazy to get the tomatoes the best flavor. So, that's what I'll be doing shortly. ON ANOTHER NOTE, walking back from getting coffee, almost got hit by a woman at a stoplight who wanted to turn in front of me...and yes folks, she was texting on her damn phone. I was not very happy. I basically just stood where I was in the crosswalk having the right of way, and looked at her until she stopped texting, then basically said in loud voice 'maybe you ought to be paying more attention to your driving, you almost hit me!' she didn't say anything. Well, her windows weren't open...but nonetheless, I didn't move for a few seconds, then finally I did and she pulled into the coffee shop. Apparently she couldn't wait the extra 10 seconds until she PARKED THE CAR to keep on texting. And she wasn't a younger person, she was like a soccer mom. Grrr...so that's how my day started. I know it will be better, pruning the tomato plants, going for a bike ride, walking the dogs. And I promise to write more this summer, much more often. :)

March, out like a lion!

Well, it's April Fool's Day, and Mother Nature sure played a joke on us! We got about 5 inches of thick, wet snow. It's very beautiful, but sort of annoying considering we're waiting for spring to really "kick in." It should be gone by the end of the weekend, temps are expected to reach around 50 degrees. Here are some photos from around outside the house.

Wake Up World! online "morning show"

I was reading in the Sunday New York Times an article about Lizz Winstead, formerly of Minneapolis and creator and original writer of "The Daily Show" that she has a new "show" in New York City. They perform this on Monday nights and it's a spoof of all the morning "talk shows." I had to check it out, of course. I had met Lizz way back in the early 1990's when I was working at the Children's Theater Company, she is a very good friend of a woman who was in Marketing at CTC at the time. Well, this show is hysterical and they put clips on their website (click here) I especially enjoyed the "Where in the **** is Davis Miles?" a great parody of Matt Lauer's "travels" on the Today show.

Project Runway spoof

OK, so I am a big fan of "Project Runway" on Bravo. This last season was very interesting, and funny. SNL did a great spoof of the winner of this past season, with Amy Poehler as Christian Siriano. Check it out.

Winter, will it ever end?

So it's been lightly snowing for the last day and a half. That's so tiring to me right now, heck it IS officially spring. Although the "wet" snow is pretty, I'm so over it. I'm ready to get out and about biking, walking in the sun, walking the dogs when it's nice out, and not have to put the dogs' little winter jackets on them. And Max hates the snow and cold and the wetness. He'll basically just stand there sort of "shaking" like it's the worse thing ever for him. Even when it's 40 degrees. The poor little thing. :) And I'm more than ready to get my fingers sunk into the garden areas again, we have plans to extend the main garden area and pretty much get rid of grass in that area and just have plants and flowers. And if the roses did well over the winter... we are going to add more rose bushes. What else has been happening? Not a lot I guess, I've been busy at work with our new season being on-sale. Haven't seen any films lately, but we did attend "Jane Eyre" at the Guthrie last weekend, which was incredible. "Jane Eyre" is one of my favorite classics, and this adaptation was really really good, without being six hours long. It was about 3 hours long, pretty typical for the Guthrie.

Uno, the wonder beagle!

How exciting was it last night to have a beagle win the Westminster Kennel Club's "Best in Show." Excellent! A great beagle named "Uno." Max and Leo were very happy that a small hound dog like themselves won this prestigious title. Yes, what can I say that Joe and I and the dogs love watching this dog show, it's very fun and dramatic! And it was fun to see all the Pedigree dog food commercials, especially the one with the smooth, red haired dachshund, who looked just like Max! Yay, Uno!

Back from Canada

I was in Toronto last week, for business basically. Some advance training on our ticketing system, and Toronto just happens to be the home base. It was a great week. The training was really informative, albeit also intense. Got to eat at some fantastic restaurants while there. And drank the best coffee ever at "Second Cup." Toronto is very cool. It's very hip and urban, and the residents are so nice. Makes the whole "Minnesota Nice" seem like nothing. I imagine it has to do with their universal health care and not having a goofy president like we do, who does stupid things. They just have an overall happiness about them. They're much more relaxed, as I think they receive much more vacation and holiday time than we do here in the US. Makes one think...
Also went to see a fun stage production called "We Will Rock You." A musical based on the music of Queen. It was really fun, although a pretty bad script and loose plot. But, the music completely made up for it, and audience members could purchase Glowsticks! Gotta love that! So, rockin' out to Queen music and waving the glowsticks arounds, it was fun. Now I'm back and we have been hit with a terrible cold spell. It's about 14 below right now, with a wind chill of -35 degrees. Not so fun. But we Minnesotans put up with it. :)

A new year

My, it's been way too long since I've posted anything to the blog. Things have been pretty okay, Christmas was very nice. Two of Joe's daughters, Ree and Sonja, spent some time with us. We did an "after Christmas" holiday dinner, with them and Debbie and Rachel. Fun to watch Rachel opening up gifts. Then the new year wasn't off to such a great start. A friend of mine, ours, and a co-worker of mine, committed suicide a couple of days before the new year. That was really, really difficult. Very unexpected, and no one would have had any idea he would do this. He was one of the most happy, smiley and funny people around. We miss him a ton. But, now we move on and forge ahead to make 2008 a really good year! I promise to write more often in the new year. Cheers for now!

Frida Kahlo exhibit

This weekend, Joe and I went to the Walker Art Center to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. It was incredible. I have been familiar with her work, her vibrant use of colors, and all the self portraits she had done, but I had no idea about her personal life and all the pain she had in life. She was in a terrible trolley car accident that doctors thought she would never walk again, and in her recovery she had an easel propped upon her cast as she lie there, and she painted some of her most amazing works. At the Walker they have these great audio guides, that work like a PDA so you don't have to "follow the person speaking" from painting to painting, but rather use a keypad to enter the number of the painting you're standing near to hear about it, and also see video and get much more information. I recommend this exhibit very highly, if you get a chance, go see it.

Meet the new guy! Leo!

Joe and I have been thinking about getting another dog for Max, and preferably another dachshund. Well, yesterday Joe was looking at the Humane Society website and lo and behold, there was a dachshund out there! So, we drove to Golden Valley to take a look at him, and the time we spent with him in the Visitation Room, we knew he was coming home with us. So, here he is. Leo (Leonardo). He's a standard size blue dapper with tan colorings, and he's just been awesome. He didn't have any "issues" adjusting to a new home, it's like he's always been here. Max is a bit "indifferent" towards him, hasn't taken on that alpha male side of him yet. They get along pretty well. Leo is 3 years old, Max is now 10, so this should help Max become more energized as well. I'll try to get a good photo of the two of them together, but here he is... Leo.

Two shows make for interesting dynamics!

We have two shows of very different themes running currently at the Ordway. The show in our main hall is "Whistle Down the Wind" which has a sort of Christian theme to it. The other in our smaller cabaret theatre is "The Rocky Horror Show." It amuses me, and my staff, to see the audience of both shows converge, since they have the same start time. One audience is a lot of church ladies, the other is a more "goth" crowd, with audience members dressing up as characters in the show. Can you guess which is which? :) Here are a couple of photos of the difference between the two shows' audiences. (the one from Rocky Horror is the actual cast we have).

New Favorite TV Program

I enjoy trying to catch the new fall TV programs, and to find something that really really grabs me and reigns me in. "Alias" had done that, "Six Feet Under" had done that. My new favorite show this fall is on ABC and called "Pushing Daisies." For one thing, it has a narration by the incomparable Jim Dale, a British "voice" who recorded/read all the Harry Potter books for CDs and Book on Tapes. The cinematography is very cool, the script is really fun and smart. It's about a man named Ned, who discovers as a small boy that he can "raise the dead" by touching them. BUT for only one minute, if longer that "being" will stay alive, but someone else will die. It's not morbid or sad, it's very intriguing and thoughtful and funny. And it has Kristen Chenoweth! Gotta love that! She sings in episode two! Hurrah! Try it out if you haven't yet. Then switch to NBC for "Bionic Woman", and then back to ABC for Peter Krause in "Dirty Sexy Money." Ahhh, television.... (the photo is from "Pushing Daisies" Ned runs a pie shop called, very humourously, The Pie Hole - how clever is that!)

White Picket Fence - Be Gone!

Long time no blog, sorry about that. Well, we have been a-fence painting. The fence around our house has been white, presumably for some time, and was probably just the primer. So we chose a lighter green color, painted the front gate only to test it, and being on a busy street, got a lot of comments about the color from neighbors walking by, and even people in cars stopping at the stoplight. The color was too light and pastel-like, which really didn't go well with the colors of the house. Then we remembered we had some green paint the same color as the house itrim, and tried that...and people loved it. Including us, it just makes everything "pop." Take a look at the house with the green after... Looks pretty good, doesn't it?