Pas de Chien

Driving in the car with a whole bunch of kids.
"I want to take ballet."

Did Saige say that?
No, she didn't.  She said, "There is no WAY you are taking ballet."

"Oh yes I am," Chase says.
"You want to take ballet, Buddy?" I ask, somewhat confused.
"I do. I want to take ballet and hip hop. Ethan and I want to do it together," he says.
Hmmmm...
"Well..." I stumble stupidly.
"You only want to do that cause the class is filled with all girls," Saige says angrily.
"Yup. Danny takes dance and he is having the best birthday party ever. Boys and girls!" says my little horndog.
"Well Chase honey," I say, "That dance school is really expensive. You can't go there just to get chicks."
"If we take ballet all the other classes are free because they want more boys there," he informs me.
"Well then,  have at it," I say.
"I don't want them in my hip hop class!" Saige says.
How do I diffuse this situation?
"Do you really want to do it Chay? I'm not trying to be rude, this is just fact, you're not exactly the ballet type," I say.
"Yeah," says Saige, "Are you going to wear tights? People will tease you."
"We don't care," he says quite confidently. "The girls won't tease us while we are picking them up and twirling them around."

Lord have mercy.
Seriously, right?
A half a brain between them, Chase and Ethan.
I wonder where that comes from.
They'll probably end up ruling the world.

Two Kooks, Some New Friends, And An Angel

Lisy and I went to NYC yesterday for work. Although it's hard to call it work when it's all so much fun. So  I think from now on I will say, "We went for PLAY." Cause that is really what we did.

Normally I drive to NY. I'm kind of a bitch about it too. People will say, "Let's take the train," and I narrow my eyes and shake my head and say, "No."

Yesterday we had to leave quite early. I agreed to the train. It seemed like such a good idea. We got up before the crack of dawn and hopped on there with two nice hot cups of coffee from the cute little train station shop. We sat in those four seats where we faced each other and Lisa read to me.  Then this man sat down next to me named Carlton and we chatted him up the entire time. He was an investment banker. He must of thought we were two nutcases. Sometimes we tend to give that impression but I believe he really enjoyed his time with us! He learned all sorts of new things! He didn't see that coming at all.

So we do our work PLAY and met more fun people. There was Dream the jewelry designer who we sat and talked to for quite a while and some awesome girls from Orange County that want us to take our show on the road and Kelly, the ex actress who was so engrossed reading the third book in the Twilight series at Barbounia until she just couldn't help herself from talking to us. And Fernando. I just love saying the name Fernando. Fernando is a slack line trickster. It was like plucking the golden ticket meeting him. He's going to come PLAY slack line with us soon. (Twisty, he can jump and do tricks!)

Then it was time to go. Back to Penn Station. It was around six o'clock. Lisa wanted a cocktail. I sat and ate a pretzel while I listened to her talk to more strangers and txted my friend. Then we thought our train was coming. We were wrong. It was canceled due to mechanical errors. I'll tell you what. When I'm at the airport and the plane won't leave because of that reason I get nervous. I could have cared less about that train though. I just wanted them to tape up whatever wheel fell  off and get me home.

From here it was another side show. Lisa "took control" and got us two more tickets issued to the same train that wasn't going anywhere. Next we missed the train we could have taken but never figured that out. We asked a not very nice train station worker and she informed us we would just have to wait. That was all we got from her. We were tired and confused. We were standing in the middle of Penn Station looking clueless when all of the sudden this girl appeared. "Are you going to Philadelphia?" she asked us. "Yes," I said. "Follow me," she told us. We did. We just followed right along. Across the train station down to a track on the way other side. Down the stairs and hopped on a train. Never even occurred to us to double check or ask someone else. On the way down I said, "What's your name?" She told us, "Evelyn," then she just disappeared.

I can't wait to do it again.

Tulu, Texting, Technology, My Tour, And Some Tofu

Today's letter is T.

I love technology. I love it so much. I love my IPod, I love dvring tv shows, I love my laptop, I love my new Blackberry Tour and I love being able to be walking around Trader Joes in Devon, Pennsylvania and e mailing back and forth with my best friend who lives in Istanbul, Turkey.

Speaking of who, was in the foreign edition of InStyle and her store Tulu and her apartment were featured. To see this totally cool pix...just look HERE.

I remember years ago when cell phones first came out. Well, even before that the Charlie's Angel's girls had a "car phone," and it totally was a phone in a car with a curly cord and all. Anything those angels did was cool too. Except for Bree. I don't know why they always dressed her in the dorky clothes and made her be the school marm type. Why is it called school marm Twisty? You should know. You used to teach at a school before you decided to go all rogue.

Anyway, after that, those phones in bags came out. It was like a briefcase. You thought that all the guys that carried them were probably drug dealers. Come to think of it...

Then the big flipper phones were here. I had one of those. I don't remember using it that much but I liked it. I like the idea of it. It still hadn't become a part of my everyday life though. That was in about 93, 94? Right? Then slowly but surely phones kept getting more popular to have. Now they are so a part of our everyday life I can't imagine what we would do with out them. I got a new one the other day. I'm almost embarrassed of my great love for it. Almost. It has apps.  I had no idea what this meant when my kids would talk about them. I just didn't get it. Now I have the coolest DaVinci screen saver and my little buttons are super fun. This is something I like.

So I think the next thing they will have to fix is the whole txting and driving issue. Did you see Seven Pounds? I only cried for a week after that tear jerker. God. So I think someone smart (like you) should invent a phone that you can talk into but spells out the words like txts. And then the person on the recieving end can read it or listen to it in their choice of voices. Just like the navigation system. I like the English guy cause he says "round about." I also like that Boulder guy's voice. He speaks midwestern.

I think I'm done. Oh, except for that Tofu.  I went to Trader Joe's and got tofu and cooked it and then played Texas Hold'em with my kids. That's a whole other story though. I've rambled long enough. It's time to go watch Desperate Housewives with my Ten year old son.

A Year In Pictures

My brother and I have often talked about that your history is how you remember it. You could live in the same house with the same person for years and years and have two different recollections of how the whole thing went down. It's just how your own memory tells the story. I myself have a very bad memory. People will tell bring up things that have happened and it's really like the first time I am hearing it. I don't think that's a good sign, although, I will say, it keeps out some of the grittier ones.

I take a ton of pictures. They help me remember. I usually don't take them in bad times either. Although the thought of it is kind of funny. Your partner and you are arguing about something and you say, "Hold please. Let me get the Canon. Let's record this moment where you sounded like a total jackass!"

I keep referencing how I am glad that 2009 is over and I am, but, I had some really good times last year. This is how I will remember it...

                                                     January chow cha chow chow chow

                                                       February skiing and snowboarding

                                                                  Ahhh... so sad....

                                                                    My baby is ten.

                                                                      Spring is here.
 My kids pretend to love each other and the girls try to lie out.
                              It's still on 60 degrees so they play on the laptop. Just like the good old days.

                                                                   Now it's summer

Bye bye summer

                                 Fall is here.        Two Gay Guys, Some Boots and Me

October        and      November

                                                        
                                                                      Brother John

 And on the 12th day of Christmas my sweet angel daughter gave to me... a hot pink Christmas tree.