She-Ra: Princess of Power

I may be getting a new couch today, courtesy of my mom's cousin, who's giving it away to make room for a new one. I say "may," because there's a slight chance it's too big to fit through my door. (My brother-in-law is picking it up for me, and he and my sister will take it if it won't fit.)

In preparation for this couch, which is cushier/larger/longer than my current couch (or, perhaps, than any other couch in the history of the world: It's quite a couch, and only a year old. She [Is she my second cousin? Is she a first cousin but once-removed? BB's husband explained that to me once, but now I can't remember]is getting rid of it because she wants DIFFERENT CHAIRS, which won't look right with the couch. Whatever. Her loss.), I moved the living room furniture into the dining room and the dining room furniture into the living room. It's a little dumb, I know, but I figured that we never use the dining room for anything other than as a place for The Boy to do his homework (we almost always eat in the kitchen), so it doesn't matter if it's next to the kitchen. The DR furniture looks really nice in its new room--it fits better, for one thing, and the color of the walls makes the furniture look less shabby. We'll see how it goes with the couch this evening.

By the way, I'm not going to move things back if it doesn't fit: I was sweating, straining, and exhausted last night, moving that furniture all by myself. The Boy was there, but his scrawny 85-pounds and noodly arms render him pretty useless when it comes to moving furniture. He carried lamps and unloaded the china cabinet and offered moral support. (Oh, and between my Trivial Pursuit performance Saturday night and my furniture-moving feat last night, The Boy now thinks I am the smartest and strongest woman in the world. He will probably never again hold me in such high regard as he does now.)

Anyway, the new set-up works fine with my (stupidawfuluglymiserableuncomfortable) current couch, so unless I get really tired of it, or The Boy and his friends sprout some muscles, things will stay where they are whether the new couch fits or not.

Cross your finger for me, though, as the new couch really is comfortable. Nap-tastic, even.

You Got to Know When to Hold 'Em

The weird warm snap is over, and it's unmistakably November again, which is a-okay with me. I made beef stew in the crock pot Friday, served with homemade rolls. Dinner may get better than that, but I'm not sure how.

This was a wonderful weekend all around (despite the heartbreaking Steelers loss to the Colts yesterday). Soccer is finally over, so The Boy and I spent Saturday and Sunday at my parents', where we baked and ate and watched football and hockey and played board games and knitted and just made my parents very happy by being there.

The Boy and I were scanning through radio stations on the way home last night, and I made him stop to listen to Kenny Rogers sing about The Gambler. (What? Everyone should know that song!) He said, "Is he talking about poker but referring to life? Because those are some good tips." I'll make an English major of him yet. We also discovered, in scanning across the radio dial, that the stupid station that plays nothing but Christmas music through the holidays has already started. Too soon! Too soon! The Boy doesn't think so, but I do. I'm a firm believer in No Christmas Until After Thanksgiving, which means that the radio station and Hallmark (who can stop it with their noisy, creepy No Peeking gift bags and Sheryl Crow's very first Christmas album) and Garmin (with their damn commercial sung to the evil Carol of the Bells (I hate the way it's so frantic: "Here come the bells! So many bells! Oh, God the bells! I hate the bells!") and all the other stores who are pushing their Christmas crap need to shut up and leave me alone.

Or else I need to avoid everything but PBS and NPR for another few weeks.

Oh, also: I spent a little time working on some GRE sample questions, and guess what! I'm not stupid! (Or, at least I don't think I'm any dumber than I was when I took the GRE a million years ago.) That's the good news. The bad news is that while I have a decent vocabulary and grasp of the English language, and still remember how to do much of the math I learned in high school, I continue to have the terrible habit of rushing through exams and making stupid mistakes because I haven't read the questions carefully enough. I blame my friend K, who used to race with me in grade school to see who could finish everything first. Damn K!

Never Happier to Have Been Wrong

Confession: I was braced for a loss, for four more years of the same, because I honestly didn't believe that America would elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Shame on me for letting my faith in my country falter like that.

I'm proud, and I'm happy, and I'm hopeful.

I heard a man on NPR say, "Rosa sat so Martin could walk, so Obama could run, so our children could fly." Amen.

Election Day

I dragged The Boy out of the house early this morning despite the fact that we were both up until nearly midnight watching the Steelers beat the Redskins. (Did you know that every time [save one] the Redskins have lost their last home game before an election, the incumbent's party has lost? Rock ON, Steelers!)

I left The Boy to doze in the car when I went into my polling place at about 6:50, where I discovered I was the 59th person in line! I was out in about 30 minutes, and we made it to school and work in plenty of time.

We switched to the electronic touch screens at my polling place a few years ago, and I have to say that I still dislike them--they don't have the same gravitas as the booths. I loved having the curtain slide closed, leaving me in private with my ballot. I loved flicking the levers, and I loved the finality of the ka-chunk sound that meant my vote was registered.

Where can I register my vote for wanting to go back to voting old school?

Korny, Happy & Jaws

Sounds like a children's book, doesn't it? The Steelers are playing the Redskins in tonight's Monday Night Football game, which means I will spend three hours putting up with these three:



The Boy and I call Mike Tirico Happy, because the smile never leaves his face.



This is Ron Jaworski, AKA Jaws. Much to my surprise, I sort of like him. He knows what's going on (of course they all do, even Mr. Crazy Mumbles, John Madden) and he knows how to talk about it in a way that makes me able to understand and learn something, without feeling like I'm being talked down to. He does tend to get on my nerves a bit, but not nearly as much as this guy:



Tony Kornheiser drives me absolutely bananas. He's a sportswriter, not a former player, which in theory might be a good thing, as he might be able to discuss the game in ways us mere mortals might better relate to. His writing skills, however, (specifically, the fact that he tends to speak the way he writes) make him all wrong for broadcast. He tends to speak in a flowery, poetic, fanboy way that reads well on paper but makes me want to kick him the moment I hear his voice.

I don't usually watch MNF because it's on ESPN and I don't have cable anymore, but Disney graciously allows ABC affiliates to simulcast home games, which means I'll be spending the evening with Happy, Jaws, and Korny. Sigh.

Sometimes it's hard to be a fan.

PS--Notice that I didn't mention the MNF women: BECAUSE THEY MAKE ME SAD. I'm all for ladies being involved in football if they want to be, and I'm very much for knowledgeable women getting a chance to discuss the game, but . . . these people are relegated to standing on the field (often in bad weather, either wearing really girly hats or getting their over-sprayed hair blown around in odd masses), talking to players and coaches who usually don't want to be bothered. And then the fellas in the booth ignore them and do their best to pretend the whole thing never happened.

Creepy, wrong, resentful, and very poorly done. Boo.

Let Us Eat Cake

Getting ready for Tuesday . . .

Halloween 2008

The Boy decided he didn't want to dress up this year, because he's never been big on trick-or-treating (a trait he inherited from me) and the Halloween parade and party at his school are only for the little kids, so we he and his dad (who loves Halloween and refers to it at least once a year as The Gay Christmas) decided they would stay at my place (C lives on a quieter street), decorate my porch, and pass out candy. We invited one of The Boy's friends and a few other people who don't get many trick-or-treaters of their own, ordered pizzas, and had an odd but very fun little party for ourselves. C bought candy, I bought candy, and the two other adults (a wizard and a Mrs. Lovett) who came brought candy and goodies, and we still ran out a few minutes before the official end--we had to turn kids away. (It was either that or give them the only other thing in my cupboards I could think of that came individually wrapped--tea bags.) I'm sure there were close to a hundred kids, and very few of them were teenagers in lame non-costumes, just looking for candy. In fact, the two who actually were in lame non-costumes were very funny and friendly once we called them on it.

The Boy and his friend did the official candy-handing-out duties, so we got to pretty much sit around, eating, drinking, talking to the neighbors, and checking out costumes. There were many store-bought Hanna Montanas and High School Musical cheerleaders (which Mrs. Lovett pointed out to us parents of boys who had no clue), and there were more than a few Pittsburgh Steelers, but there were also a lot of creative and/or well made costumes. One of The Boy's friends, who is a very quiet, creative girl who always looks meek and a bit frightened, attached a whole bunch of those small, individualized cereal boxes to herself and then jammed plastic knives into them: She was, of course, a cereal killer. One set of boys were in very cute Mario and Luigi costumes their mom had made out of red and green t-shirts, ball caps, and creative sewing. One family was dressed as a moon, stars, and planets (but the planet couldn't fit through the walkway in my hedges and had to entrust his bag to someone else while he waited on the street).

A kid from The Boy's soccer team dressed all in black and covered himself with glow sticks, while his little brothers were race car drivers. There were plenty of baby pumpkins and Tiggers in strollers, the cutest, fattest baby Superman I've ever seen, and more Spidermen (Spidermans?) than I could count.

It was a very good night. I'm not a big Halloween person, but this one was a very good time.