Author - Lorri

We finally got some snow today!  We’ve been freezing our patooties off, but not any snow.

This is the snowman the boys made.  It wore Philip’s beret briefly before he headed back to work.

Pumpkin Girl and I made this one.

We barely got enough snow to make those two snowmen and just doing that uncovered the grass.  I bet that’s all the snow we get this season.  Do you think we’ll get much more in Colorado?

What I wanted to tell you on Tuesday, before my day went all higgeldy-piggledy, was about how nice my birthday was.

Philip got me an iTouch which I am enjoying immensely.  I don’t use my cell phone often enough to justify any more than a prepaid plan, so an iPhone would have been an extravagance I was unwilling to pay money for.  We hit a minor snag during the day when we couldn’t remember the stinkin’ password to our router, so my iTouch wasn’t able to do much of anything.  We finally got that squared away and I got busy downloading fun applications.  I got Aurora Feint, Mancala, Topple and Suduko.  If you’ve got an iTouch/Phone, what free or cheap applications do you enjoy?

I also got a Wii Music game.  Way. Too.  Fun!  Easy enough for the kids to enjoy, but still somewhat challenging.  Pumpkin Girl and I totally rock the handbells, playing “Do Re Mi” together.

Speaking of Pumpkin Girl, she and Boo made me a book, complete with recycled cardboard box covers.  The funny thing is, they faced the boxes so the graphics are facing out, and they used a Hostess Cupcake box and a Nilla Wafer box.  Yummy!  Pumpkin wrote the story about a princess and her family.  Boo did the stapling. They were all secretive and busy the day before, the way kids are when they are planning a surprise.  I pretended not to know something was up and made sure to stand on the landing of the stairs and call down loudly to Philip that I was going upstairs now, just in case he needed me.  The scurrying, squeals and slamming of the door that followed cracked me up. I think their book is my favorite gift ever.

We had already gone out to eat on Sunday since we anticipated a lot of pre-inauguration traffic on Monday night.  Bip loves Chili’s, so we stopped there on the way home from the craft store.  It was lunch time, but we ordered dessert.  I’m not sure why, but they asked if we were celebrating a birthday.  We told them we were celebrating mine and they gave us the dessert on the house.  It was their white chocolate molten cake.  Delicious!

So see – I can have good days, too! Granted, they aren’t nearly as funny in retrospect, but they do happen!

My husband had today off as did many people who work in the District.  So we took the day off school too, even though we got a great civics lesson watching the inauguration.  We looked for a church friend on TV, he was part of the honor guard and carrying a flag.  They never zoomed in close enough to any of the military people for us to identify him, though.

Did anyone notice that we traded one big eared president for another?  I wonder what that means.

My friend Shanti, who is younger than me and therefore far less curmudgeonly, got out with the crowds today.  Check out her Inauguration Meanderings.

Our day did not actually center around politics, though.  We spent most of the time seriously purging and packing up the childrens’ rooms.  It is so hard to get them to give up any of their valuable possessions, no matter how infrequently they play with them.  However, they were very willing to allow us to pack up lots and lots of toys and stuffed animals until we arrive in Colorado – in 6 months!  We agreed that if there is anything that got packed up that they want to play with before we move, they can ask and we’ll get it for them.  Everything else that stays packed up until after we move – well, we got them to agree that we’ll evaluate it at that time.  I’m betting a lot of it can be given away.  Ideally, of course, we’d get rid of it before we move, but this is a good compromise.

Going through every square inch of the bedroom and playroom was exhausting and frustrating.  Yet satisfying.  Pumpkin Girl especially, who is very sentimental, saw the benefit of moving out lesser used toys to make room for her ever growing collection of craft supplies (resemble mom much?).

Then I spent a good half hour sobbing my eyes out on Philip’s shoulder about a misunderstanding I had with someone else.  Turns out I completely didn’t understand what I read and by the time I had a solution worked out, a new email had arrived explaining what the situation really was.

But right under that email was a notification from PayPal regarding the shipping information for a $1,600 order I didn’t place!  Holy Fraud, Batman, we’ve been hacked!  The next 45 minutes or so was spent with Philip on one phone and me on another, filing a claim with Paypal, contacting the bank, etc, etc, etc.  Someone paid for a Macbook they bought on eBay with my Paypal account.  I have now changed every single password on every online account that I can think of, including the one to my blog.

It’s no wonder I have a headache, is it?

It’s still several days away, but the Inauguration is already annoying me.  It’s messing with my plans all over the place.  Last week, the President came to our base to say goodbye to some of the folks here and shut down the main street and a couple of the gates.  Something was Up today too, as I tried to leave base to take my parents to the Metro station.  An MP was stopping cars and having them turn around.  Right before I got to him, 2 of the President’s helicopters left from the helopad where they’re stationed.  Hmmm. The MP instructed me on how to get around the road closure and then I asked him what was up.  “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t discuss it,” was the answer.  OK, but hey look – aren’t those both the helicopters? (Whenever the Prez travels in Marine One, both helicopters are used at the same time.  Don’t worry, I learned this from the Military Channel, not any of the Army’s Top Men.)

So my plans for the upcoming national holiday are thwarted, too.  We usually hit some of the Smithsonians, but seeing as how they line the National Mall, I don’t think it’s going to be worth the hassle, being less than 24 hours away from the Big Event.  We considered leaving town for the weekend, but we’d have to return on Monday, coming into DC at precisely the same time as every.single. other. person. who thinks seeing the Inauguration will be fun.

Oh, and they are closing all bridges from VA into DC and a good number of offramps from MD to DC, too.  So at some point or another, it is going to be near impossible to get into the District.

Just call me Gripey McGripester.

On Christmas Eve, Boo put on his dress pants and we discovered that he was outgrowing them, as ten year old boys tend to do.  They were still ok to wear to church, but it was time for new pants.  Later in the week when he was folding his laundry, he left the pants in the living room

I told him to put them away and he told me that he wanted to give them away now that they were too short.  I asked him to please put them away anyway, since he could still wear them if he needed to, until we could get him some new ones.

As ten year old boys tend to do, he brought the pants to his room, but left them on the floor, where I discovered them several days later, crumpled in a heap, now needing to be ironed.  I gave him a stern lecture and instructed him to put them away. Which is what I told him the first time.  No, I didn’t iron or rewash the pants.

Now here we are, a few weeks later.  My parents are visiting and wanted to take us all out to the brunch at the Officer’s Club after the children’s religious education class.  About 20 minutes before we need to leave to drop them off, Boo comes to me and asks if he should change into a collared shirt and his dress pants before class or after. Of course, I reminded him that his dress pants were a wrinkled mess from lying on his floor.

What ensued next was mind boggling.

He threw such a hissy fit over not having anything nice to wear for brunch.  We recommended that he wear jeans with his collared shirt, tie and dress shoes, but he wouldn’t have it.  We suggested just wearing what he was wearing, since brunch here is not all that dressy.  Nope, wouldn’t hear of it.   He was stomping around and carrying on so much that we needed to point out that if he’d hung the pants up in the first place, he would have them to wear.  Oh, and remember -he felt they were too short to wear anyway.

He stormed off, declaring that he was old enough to stay home alone, so he wasn’t going to brunch.  He said something else about not feeling right about wearing every day jeans with a nice shirt.

When he had left, Philip and I looked at each other and said, “Is he throwing a fit over…clothes?  When did he become so fashion conscious?”  It was pretty darn funny.  I guess we really should have been more sympathetic but honestly, who knew he cared so much about clothes?  This does not bode well for the teen years when he realizes that the ladies care about the fashion.

The lesson here is of course, when mom tells you to do something, you really should do it.  Or risk being known as Fashion Boy from here on out.

OK, you all so didn’t warn me.  I thought we were friends.  Why didn’t you tell me how awful the movie “Ratatouille” is?  Yes, I knew what it was about – some disease infested rodent becoming a chef.  But it’s Disney, fer cryin’ out loud!  Surely they could turn that into something worthwhile?  And it takes place in Paris, so how can you go wrong?

I’ll tell you.

Hordes of pestilent rodents falling out of a poor old lady’s ceiling.

Swarms of disease laden rats tying up the health inspector and throwing him in the pantry, probably to later kill him and eat his liver.

A main character love child (“Mama, how come Gusteau didn’t know he had a son?”) who is bitten all over his chest by said rodents from hell.  Don’t the French have socialized medicine?  Yeah, good luck getting a rabies shot, monsieur.

Rats cooking. Thousands of them. Crawling all over the kitchen, the food, the pots, pans and utensils.  Oh sure, they washed their hands but they are RATS.  I don’t care if they were stuck in an autoclave, they are not going to be clean enough to prepare food.  They weren’t even wearing hairnets.

I could go on, but let’s just say that Pumpkin Girl and I will not be eating out for a very long time.