We Support Public Television

We are patrons of the arts, you know.  I am the single biggest contributor to the public arts scene in Indianapolis.  I'm not even embarrassed to tell you that, since it's absolutely false.  I have been known to contribute to NPR sporadically, but we owe tonight's public broadcasting soiree to the WFYI membership of my soon to be sister in law, Meghan. 

She invited us to attend a preview of Ken Burns' new documentary on PBS/WFYI called Prohibition.  I love me some public radio and TV, so naturally we said yes.  The WFYI building was transformed into a speakeasy from the 20s.  Me likey.

We were greeted outside by an old friend, Big Bird.  

 Big Bird and I have a lot in common, as I have actually been referred to as Big Girl by some very insensitive kindergartners.

These evening had some serious awesome elements including this lovely lady, known as The Black Pearl.  She referred to herself in the 3rd person, as in, "The Black Pearl is going to sing you a song now, darlings."  I think Jimmy might have liked The Black Pearl more than he liked Elaine.  

 Element of Awesomesauce #2:

The presence of one Terry Lee.

That would be Terry Lee of Terry Lee Honda, the one who promises TLC, or The Terry Lee Commitment.  He was a sponsor and received an award.  He also made the mistake of trying to get some stuffed mushrooms near my brother, providing a perfect opportunity for me to get photographic evidence of that mini man car dealer extraordinaire.

 The booze was a flowin' up in that speakeasy.

 T sampled many a beer, requiring me to drive us home.  He described his favorite as "that beer that Jamie drinks all the time, Chantilly Lace?"  Um no, that would be Stella Artois.  I didn't marry that man for his intellect, that's for sure.

 They gave away champagne truffles from The Best Chocolate in Town, which has the best chocolate in town.  I bought about $35 worth of it for Trinity's parents for Christmas back in 2009 and my parents' fool dog got under the tree and ate the whole 2lb box.  She didn't even have the decency to die after that.  Imagine the rudeness!

 They also had a photo booth!  We love a photo booth, as you might recall from our wedding.  

 This clearly wasn't Robby's first rodeo.  Check out that pose.

 The lovely public television folks gave me a name tag and a feather to put in my hair for the whole flapper theme.  

Martinis, song birds, chocolate truffles, photo booth shots and free feathers made me think the night couldn't get any better.  I was wrong.  As we left the WFYI studio, we encountered this couch.  Husband and I are super Klassy, so we had to get our groove on with this squiggly couch.  

 Levitating....

 Planking...

Peggy Sue got married in burlesque style poses.  

Fortunately for WFYI we had to become members.  We can't let these types of events occur without our support.

Boring!!!

My lack of blogging is correlated to my lack of excitement.  We've been busy with work and school, and not a lot else.  However, T has really been enjoying his "Lemon."  

That would be the Lululemon jacket that my brother and sister got him for his birthday.  We discovered it is even more fabulous to wear while eating at Yats than to wear while doing yoga or running.

There has been kitty wrestling.

I'm actually watching football.  I've gotten through many games recently, making it to halftime in the Notre Dame-Michigan game and all the way through a couple of Tennessee games.  I may just be watching for Erin Andrews' outfits.  I wish I had her mermaid hair.

I will close with my best teaching story of the week.  I sat down to have a writing conference with an EL 5th grader on Thursday, who was finishing up his narrative.  I will preface this by saying he was being truthful, there was absolutely no intent to be snarky or funny on his part.  His first sentence went something like this, "One fall afternoon, Brandon got off the bus feeling very aroused."  

While straining to maintain a straight face, I asked him about using the word aroused.  He responded that he didn't really know this word, but was working on word choice and wanted a better word than "excited."  He then pulled out his thesaurus and showed me how he had used it.  I tried to explain that although aroused is indeed a synonym for excited, it was not the best choice in this context.  He flipped back to the thesaurus and actually said, "How about stimulated?"  

"No, Brandon, I think "excited" will work for you here."

I love my job.

My Parents are Back!

My parents returned on Thursday from their 3 week adventure.  They flew to Rome, where they spent 5 days exploring.  They boarded a cruise ship and traveled to Monte Carlo, Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, Croatia and Venice.  3 weeks of zero communication with my mother was quite challenging.  I finally noticed that my husband is not exaggerating to say that I speak to her 2-3x daily.  

Mother Bear turned 62 last week in Venice.  We felt it was only necessary to celebrate Terre Haute style.  Mom and Dad were still too pooped to show the 800+ photos they took, so we just accepted our travel gifts.

I don't believe I have yet mentioned that they went to Vatican City. Mom claims she didn't repeatedly chant "JPII, we love you, " but I'm not sure that's the truth.  Dad claims that Pope Benedict personally called to thank her for all of the moolah she spent in the gift shop.  We Catholics like ourselves some religious relics.  Mother is no exception.

Trinity and Meghan got saint medals.  There is no Saint Meghan or Saint Virginia (Meg's middle name) so mother improvised and bought her a Blessed Virgin Mother medal, which kind of sounds like Virgina.  Trinity got a John the Baptist medal.  There is no Saint Trinity.  Why?  Because his name is only the whole shootin' match.  He's legit.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit all in one!

Here is a small sample of her wares.

 Sister Katie and I got new rosaries.  I love that their packaging actually has Pope John Paul wearing them.

I stored them last night on my First Communion portrait.  

We were so glad to have Mom and Dad back.

A Model Citizen

This week has been a total change of scenery for me.  I was summoned for jury duty on Tuesday to the City-County building.  I was pulled from the pool of 22 people to a panel of 14 for questioning by the attorneys and judge.  I was the only one who was not directly asked a question, so I assumed I was out.  I was wrong. I was juror 7, the alternate juror.  I was seated for the entire case, which lasted for three days, but was not allowed to deliberate for the verdict.  That kind of blew.  I thought the process was fascinating.  

I wandered around downtown on the lunch breaks and saw lots of interesting characters in the city-county building.  It wasn't exactly glamorous.  I never saw anyone who even closely resembled my all time favorite television attorney, ADA Abbie Carmichael.  I even considered wearing my one and only pant suit that I purchased in 2000 for job interviews and pretending to be Ms. Carmichael myself.  I've got the height, minus the fabulous legs, body and husky voice.  Did you know she was a fit model for Michael Kors?  If you haven't seen an old Angie Harmon episode of Law and Order, here it is.  

Lake Fun Continued...

Robby sent me some more photos from last weekend.  We had to pay our respects to Macho Man Randy Savage.  I've mentioned his impact on our childhoods.

We spent most of Sunday night in the garage playing corn hole and other such nonsense.

Tim, Jamie and I reclined on the hot dog, which is what all of the kids ride while being dragged behind the boat.  It was quite comfy.  We didn't actually ever use it on the lake.  It is too similar to the banana float that holds all of those poor kids that get attacked by the giant shark in Jaws 2 or 3.  No thank you.

 This was my fun idea.  

Tim makes a great monkey face.

 Tim started the internet sensation known as "planking."

 That is so passe.  He then introduced "owling."  That is the next big thing on youtube.  You have to perch and balance like an owl.  He may have totally made this up now that I'm thinking lucidly.  I love owls, so we did it up.

A special thank you to Tim for allowing me to wear his fedora all night.  I was pretending to be Nicole Ritchie or Samantha Ronson.  Remember her?  She's that chick that was Lindsay Lohan's lady back when Lindsay Lohan thought she was a lesbian.  

UT Game

I was so excited that I got to attend my first SEC football game on Saturday.  We met Natalie and Joey in Knoxville to watch Tennessee play Montana.  Our party started at a bar called The Tin Roof.

I have never seen so much orange in my life.  

 This is right where Trinity tried to get me to have my face painted. No thanks.  It was 99 degrees out.  I was having shiny skin issues already.  No need to add warrior paint.

 The excitement was overwhelming.  There were so many people there, and the stadium was amazing.  Tennessee peeps know how to do football.

 Natalie, a native Tennessean, experienced her first UT game with her giant Hoosier pal.  

 This was the field right before the sky opened up and it poured!!!! 

 The game was delayed well over an hour and we got seriously soaked, but those crazy UT fans just kept singing Rocky Top repeatedly.  

Here we are, a little more dried out.  The highlight of the game for me was the half time performance.  The UT marching band performed with their Glee Club.  Picture like 40 sweet Southern boys, decked out in tuxedos and orange bow ties, singing "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Buble.  I was in heaven.  I am already planning our next game, since the whole experience was much more thrilling than an IU football game.  I'm thinking October, where I can trade in my orange linen pants and Cucumber vodka/Sprite mix for an orange sweater, fabulous boots and a hot chocolate/Baileys!

Las Fagis 2011

Trinity and I headed down to Lake Norris for our annual summer lake trip with our pals.  That area is so gorgeous!  We started our weekend off right with some cake for Allison's birthday.  When I called I requested a lake scene with girls in bikinis.  I thought Allison would love that.  The lady at the cake shop said "people are too hard to do."  I was thrilled to see that they improvised.  Check out this tacky ass cake-  

That's a squirrel and a raccoon.  We generally try to avoid raccoons while laking.  It tasted great, despite the silly decor.

Tyler helped Jamie cut it up.

 We sang to the birthday girl.

 We floated all afternoon in the water, wearing life jackets as adult diapers.

 T snacked on the boat.

Tyler snagged Steve's tank top, and the party continued...

Tim and I always have to shoot some sort of ridiculous video.  I explained to the crowd that last year I had to explain to an EL student how a Tyrannosaurus Rex moves.  The dinosaur fell down in the book he was reading, and he couldn't get up.  My sweet little boy with limited English needed a visual representation, so I got on the floor and showed him.  I decided to show my friends my mad dino skills.