School Daze...

Clever no?  No?!  FINE!

Thing 1 is in 4th grade.  She decided NOT to do band this year because it takes her out of the class for a certain time of day and she is responsible for making up that time and that freaked her out and she didn't want to do it.  Next year I am hoping that she changes her mind a little.  Unfortunately, after meeting her teacher, I feel THIS year would have been the best time to see if she wants to do orchestra/band.  She is very timid and doesn't like the thought of people looking at her, even if I convinced her she would be lost in the crowd.  I told her about choir when I was in High School..she is still not convinced. I am clearly in error here. Fine.  But check THIS out...her after school program is doing a pagaent and her grade is putting on a play and singing a song.  For the play, she is doing set up for sets and props... I am so proud!  She did say she wouldn't mind being the narrator...I can see in my head right now the kind of narrator she would be... I think this is the best choice.  The narrator is not meant to read the script off of a paper with their head down, mumbling, and then RUN off the stage...  see what I mean?

The parent teacher conference that I always have in October with her teacher was, as always, fabulous.  Doing above average, yet still a B student because she just doesn't overachieve.  It's not her style.  Under the radar suits her to a T and that's where she will stay.  The books her teacher has her reading are advanced and she even asked me if I had something more advanced at home because she's basically at a 6th grade reading level.  Takes after her mom, what can I say?!

Right now she's reading the Rick Riordan books and she loves them.  She got pieces of two sets from a relative. I am using the library to fill in the blanks. I am in love with our County library system.  I can get books at the library by work and have them sent to there from all over the county.  And if Dad needs a book, I have them sent to our local home branch from all over the county.  It's AMAZING!  I need to show him how to do that, that reminds me...

I am so happy that I can trust her to do her homework on her own, and I was really leary about the teacher at first, but at Back To School night I knew me and this lady were on the same page.  It feels so good, to walk through a day in the life of a mom...working, driving, banking, shopping, and NOT worrying about how my oldest is doing in school.  Of all the things, it's nice not to worry about THAT thing when there are so many others going on...  I know what it means to want to lavish your child with rewards because they did above and beyond expectation, but at the risk of spoiling, I didn't.  We DID do something a little special.  We got some books.  I think the reward fits the...crime?  Hmm, how would I word that better?  eh... anyways...

Finns is the latest addition to our family...the family fish.  A Betta that's red and blue and she just had to have it, to replace the one she killed that Noni gave her because she didn't feed him enough or she fed him too much.  The jury is still out on that, but we'll know more when we get the toxicology report....

Too much SVU... That's what she said "Too bad we can't test the fish like on that show..."  Oh geez... time to get a new show kiddo...hehehe...  well, that's all for school... Thing 2 is so far from school it's not funny...what with her bday being in January... hey, she was planned, just not THAT well planned...  Like, 80% planned...  that 20% was not accounting for time of year born...

The Kennedy Chronicles: The Golden Era of MTV Through Rose Colored Glasses

Generally as a rule of thumb I do not ask for books for presents... usually it gets screwed up somehow and I don't like to be disappointed and I make another general rule to not be...so I don't set myself up for it by telling people to get me books...or music.. Even with a list people somehow get it wrong...  And the mister KNOWS this... He has the same rules.  Christmas can be a pain the ass, gift giving in general that is.  Mostly it's to do with wanting to get someone EXACTLY what they want, EXACTLY how they want it because you love them and want to make them happy.  Therefore, shopping with PICTURES of shit on my phone so as to get the right gift takes the piss out of gift giving, surprises, and the occasion in general. 

I am so happy to be with someone that feels the confidence in throwing that caution to the wind and get me books... It's pretty amazing looking at yourself through someone else's eyes.. I loved opening those books, realizing what they were, and realizing that based on the person he sees when he sees me, he thought that these were great choices...He was absolutely right!  So right in fact, I have to tell you bout how good the Kennedy book was...and no... Not JFK Kennedy... Lisa Kennedy Montgomery of MTV. 

One day, in 1997 I turned on MTV, saw Carson Daly's mugging poser face...and I turned the channel for once and for all.  I was done.  I felt it, I felt a disturbance in the force.  I wasn't one of these drooling, mindless, MTV-ites that only ever watched what was channel 34 on my parents JC Penney console special.  My older sister had it on, I preferred movie channels.  But that doesn't mean I didn't caught up in some of the hoopla.  I remember where I was when I first saw certain videos and what I was doing when m y sister and her best friends (who were irish-twins) were playing phone tag. 

"Oh my gawd, call me when you see the video come on!"

"Ok, but YOU call ME if YOU see the video come on!"

"Like totally!"

"Totally, ok!"

...this happened summer of '90 when Bryan Adams was burning up the airwaves with his hot and steamy Robin Hood song... And Christian Slater was in the movie, and he had one scene that made it into the video...and THAT was enough for the above conversation to take place.  Plus it was THE skating rink couples song of the summer.

Anyways, so that was my exposure and that was why I had it.  When I got to 8th grade, I had curly, kinky, frizzy, Irish Gypsy hair...and thanks to FUCKING ALICIA SILVERSTONE it was so not "in" that year... bitch.

I also had a realization that I would forever been entombed in 4 eyes mode so I started to have the fun with the glasses that big sis was having since our Ma worked at an eye dr's office and got KILLER deals on frames... like, Free.99 and shit.

Hence, the Kennedy look started and I didn't even realize I was doing it, and sis looked the same... so when I got the High School I was her mini-me...and the Kennedy moniker was passed down to include me. 

That all being said: I have always felt a weird connection to Kennedy.  I mentioned ONCE or TWICE that people called me and sis Kennedy in HS, and my hubby took that and ran with it to get me this book that rocked my world.  It was everything I wanted to know about what I also believe to be the Hay Day of MTV and just the way I wanted to know it!  People were reviewing this book and bitching about the grammar... dude, really?  This isn't an English Paper and it's written in the way that she speaks, I felt more like she was speaking to me than I was reading some paper.  Structure for sure has a time and place. I get it... but still, I am not sitting there and making notes, I'm sorry.  I was more interested in the non-penetrative steamy session she had with Dave Navarro... Jesus pleasus... it was a great book and what I really enjoyed the most was how I came around to it, through Choni... just made me love him more, like I couldn't anyways, you know?  What really makes it MORE awesome, is that he doesn't read... He reads articles, and he reads the internets... he's not a book reader.  I feel like that helps us fit better because I'm not as avid a magazine reader as he is...Fangoria and Spin used to be my bread and butter and then I got a Rolling Stone subscription and we were hooked on that for a spell..but between us the one that read the MOST and remembered it was him.  Good thing too, there were some good articles I all but forgot.  Now I'm about to start Empire of the Sun because there is something bout that movie that makes him think of me and my dad's family when he watches it...and I get it too... I really do...and I used to watch that movie when it was on Showtime ALL summer long with my sis...  Now it's found new life and new reason and I'm about to dive into the book!! 

I've read SO MANY books that were movies later, I know what to expect, I know not to disappoint myself, I know that JG Ballard was working on the film with Spielburg and that sometimes things aren't aesthetically pleasing and that's what filmmaking is all about, artistic liberties.  I'm ready, bring me to WWII Shanghai, Jim...

I FORGOT I LOVE TO READ!!!

Stupid right?  Imagine MY surprise when I realized it...

I had been reading King's 11/22/63 off and on between crochet projects, paying bills online and taking care of household chores on my lunches at work.  Very seldom did I find myself with a moment at home to do this... Am I shocked? No.  I have the two kiddos and there was softball and there was this and there was that and there was just moments of sitting on the couch, all four of us slugging up a Saturday afternoon... I have the book... I can return to the book.  I can't recreate moments like THAT one.  I don't think ANYONE really can...  SLURP... that's what I do, I SLURP them up and enjoy and savor because the book will always be there, in my drawer at work...and if work burns down... I can buy another book... 

Thank you books, for being so sturdy and solid and always there when I'm ready to return to you...the penultimate loyalty!  Even better than a dog, who'd a thought?

And thank you to my sister from another mister for always having just the right taste in book to get me...

I just finished "Joyland" by Stephen King.  A pulp novel... one I never knew existed and it's fairly new.  I was ok with the fact I hadn't heard of it, I didn't expect to know about it.  I pulled myself out of "The Know" for a minute or two while I soak up all these firsts, to be returned to later.  So I'm returning slowly, one foot in the door... part-timer over here. 

I sucked that book up and all it's delicious description that King serves up so well, hitting all the satisfying parts of my literary appetite.  Fantastico! Mangia!!

It was a great little book, perfect for cleansing your palate... It's the salad course to my new meal of book reading...

But what I am going to do is...re-read.

I have had so many things go on since I've read some of my favorites that I'm not able to answer questions about books as well as I used to...  I need to get into the archives of my memory warehouse.  Maybe the best way to unlock this hidden information is to revisit it... maybe that's the key... For instance, I KNOW I could have looked this up, but it really pissed me the fuck off that I couldn't answer Choni's questions about Holden Caulfield... GODDAMN IT!!!  That is unacceptable for an English Major!!!!

So, here I go... my Journey "On The Road..." and beyond ..."The Rye"...

because I can, because I need to open up those periodicals in my brain...

If I can't access them, what good are they?