My Favorite Old Lady

Grandma Olive is the coolest old person that has ever lived… or at least the coolest one I’ve ever known.  She’s hilarious, has INSANE stories from the great depression, WWII, every other war, women’s lib, and anything else you can imagine that’s happened in this century, and she sees us visiting as an excuse to pump my children full of sugar.  And isn’t that what being a grandma is really about?

She’s not actually our grandma, she’s just awesome and didn’t have any grandchild that lived here which was a fabulous coincidence because I am also awesome and I also didn’t have any grandparents that lived here.  So we decided to team up and adopt one another as family.

Verona and Olive even had a joint birthday party one year because their birthday’s are only two days apart. Verona was turning 1 and Olive was turning 92. (Verona’s not as dirty as she looks, her face and hair are just covered with birthday cake.)

Verona and I went to hang out with her every Friday afternoon for a year and a half until her daughter decided to move to out to California to live with her.  We were all super sad, but we write to each other and she comes back to visit occasionally so she can see us and have pizza parties with her friends at the retirement home.  (I’m not even kidding.  She threw a pizza party last night for her friends.)

So today we went with her and her daughter Murial to the park.

Finn got to hitch a ride on her walker.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when people hit a certain age there ceases to be a middle of the road in terms of personality.  Old people are either the coolest people you’ve ever met in your life or they’re miserable and you wish they would just hurry up and die already… something about the loss of memory and bone density pulls one to the extremes I guess.  Regardless, if you don’t have an awesome old person in your life you should go find one, because they’re the best.

My Epic Weekend Adventure

An epic adventure was needed.  It was desperately, desperately needed.  So a month or two ago Kristen and I planned an epic adventure that we knew we couldn’t do until both of us had baby sitters on the same day.

Then suddenly, the stars aligned.  Our friend Megan was going to be in town for a weekend.  The same weekend David’s mom wanted to take the kids.  The same weekend Kristen already had a baby sitter on Saturday because she was working later that day.  And the clouds opened above us, and the angels sang, and we all ran away to a day of much drinking and picture taking together.

Our first stop on the lightrail we got off, ready for fun.  We were immediately approached by a homeless man who asked if we had a dollar. We didn’t… who carries cash anymore?  ”No no, don’t be sorry.” he told us.  ”No problem.  Thank you for your time.”  We kept on walking until the man’s demeanor completely changed and he turned to Kristen and said “I have a plan for today.  And that plan is to eat.”  We all laughed politely but he stopped us.  ”No, you don’t understand.  I’ve been asking people for a dollar all morning and nobody’s given me one.  If somebody doesn’t give me a dollar, I’m going to rob somebody.”

We all laughed uncomfortably and I moved behind David in one quick motion.  (David, for those of you who don’t know, is reasonably big and people are highly intimidated by him.)  Maybe it makes me a bad friend but the truth is I suspect Kristen and Megan can run away fast than I can, I’m going to take my advantages where I can get them.

He looked us up and down then added.  ”I’m going to rob someone.  If you don’t want it to be you ladies, you need to go that way.” pointing the direct we weren’t going.  We went that way anyway… wasting a few minutes going the wrong direction seemed a small price to pay.  Afterall, nothing fucks up an epic adventure more than getting stabbed before it’s even begun.

When we finally resumed our first stop (if you can’t read the instructions we had to stop at the third restaurant to the east) was this adorable little place called Fez.  None of us had ever been there but I’d recommend it.  We told the bartender to get us whatever four drinks he thought we would like the most and he did a fabulous job.

He then surprised us with a round of shots.  Huzzah!

Our bartenders name was Jesus and we started talking to him, explaining out whole epic adventure plan and telling him about almost getting robbed when in the middle of our story crazy homeless man shows up outside the restaurant.  ”That’s him!  That’s him right there!  Holy cow!” we exclaimed.

Jesus threw the towel he was using down on the bar and charged outside announcing “Don’t worry ladies, I’ll take care of this.”  We don’t know what he did or said, but he took care of it.  The crazy guy left and we didn’t see him again.

Proving once and for all that Jesus saves.

We took the next train south after that and ended up at the park behind the library.

We had as much fun at the park as we could, but the truth was we were raging hungry.  The instructions said we had to find a man with a mustache to tell us where to have lunch so we went on a hunt for a mustached man.  We searched…

…and we searched…

…and we searched…

…and we searched.

We searched for so much longer than it seemed possible we would have to search… although that could have just been the hunger talking.  After what seemed like a million years we found someone with sufficient facial hair who told us to go to The Spaghetti Factory, which we gladly did.

Oh lord it was delicious.  We didn’t have a bartender to tell us what to drink so David declared he was our bartender and ordered us stuff he thought we’d like and he was correct.  There are very few pictures of the food because everyone was too hungry to do anything with it that wasn’t digging in.

We did, however, take plenty of pictures afterward.

“““

The rest of the day was lots of walking, lots of picture taking, lots of talking and searching and fun.  Eventually we were suppose to find someone on a skateboard to tell us where to drink next but if we thought finding someone with a mustache was hard it was only because we didn’t try to find someone on a skateboard.

Eventually we gave up because we were thirsty and decided to just go the next place we saw that we could drink.  Then, like magic, a Hard Rock appeared before us.

Hurray for epic adventures!

Three years ago I pushed an enormous head out of my lady garden. So today, we feast!

Yep, today was Verona’s 3rd birthday.  I’d previously been opposed to themed parties, mostly because they seemed like so much effort, but when she requested an Angry Birds party I decided that was probably something I could get behind.  So I announced my plan to the world, only to then realize I may have vastly over estimated my artistic abilities.  I think it turned out ok though.

The cake was super fun to make.

The pizzas were fun to make but on three of the four their little orange beaks melted into their faces, making me regret not taking the picture before throwing them in the oven.  But whatever.

The boys all escaped into the other room to do… video games?  I don’t know, something that boys do.  The children escaped outside to run around the the shoulder high weeds like feral little monsters.

Adorable feral little monsters at that.

While us mamas sat around chatting, laughing, and drinking an interesting beverage we concocted out of glazed donut flavored vodka and coffee liquor.  It was like an unhealthy breakfast in a glass.

And, as these things tend to happen, one thing led to another until we were all hooping in the back yard.

You know.  Cause we’re cool like that.

I have a boner for vintage cameras.

The good thing about some of your best friends selling everything they own to move overseas?  You get their stuff… and you can get it for cheap.  This is substantially cooler when your friends are the type who own cool stuff.  But I digress.

Due to the situation above I recently became the owner of several super funky vintage cameras that I have fallen MADLY in love with.  Like, run away to Vegas and get married, love.

Like most things, the thing that makes them awesome is also the thing that makes them suck.  In the case of ancient analogue cameras that is the fact that you have to tell them Every. Single. Thing. you want it to do.  Modern cameras are way smarter than you realize (or at least than I realized).  Smart enough to know what kind of film you put in it, how to focus on what you’re shooting, how much light is in the room.  And that’s just the $40 camera that your grandma got at Walmart… my DSLR is so smart it could take the freaking SAT for you.

I tell my normal camera “Hey you, this is the picture I want to take.” and it responds “Awesome Jenna, I’m on it!”

I tell one of these new guys that and it shoots me a look of dire confusion while responding “Picture?” like it doesn’t speak English.

Anyway, it’s a giant pain in my ass.  It’s also awesome because by having to think through every little piece of a photo before I take it instead of just spinning my camera around while holding down the continuous shooting button I am learning so much about the basics of photography it’s unreal.

It’s like explaining advanced physics to a kid with Downs.

You’ll want to start punching walls because it’s so frustrating, but when you’re done you’ll have a deeper understanding of physics because you had to break it all down to it’s most basic components.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures to accompany this post… almost seems ironic… but everything I’ve been shooting lately has been film and none of it’s developed yet so I’ll get some soon.

This is why I love my kid.

I love my kid because she’s weird.  And because her weirdness causes her to engage in early morning didgeridoo playing.  Which is awesome.

It’s my birthday and I’ll hoop if I want to.

Am I the only one who’s weirded out by birthdays?  There’s something bizarre about getting a ton of attention for something I had little to no part in.  I mean, Susan was the one doing all the hard work that day, and from I’ve heard she accomplished it despite my best efforts.  (Apparently I was mad set on staying right the hell where I was… I sucked at change from the get go.)

Jenna, quit rambling!

This past weekend was my birthday, and despite birthdays being inherently weird (expulsion from your mother’s uterus cake!) was pretty fun.  We started Friday night going out to dinner with David’s family to one of those Japanese places where they cook all the food in front of you, throw it around, do crazy tricks, and light stuff on fire.

That, my friends, is an onion volcano.  Edible topography for the win.

Then Saturday night all our friends went to Tim Finn’s, everyone’s favorite Irish pub, to celebrate my birthday and our good friend Alisha’s.  We’re birthday buddies so it usually makes sense to do a joint birthday party since we have all the same friends.

We weren’t out that late cause we had to get home and put kids to bed but a couple of our friends came back to our house to continue the festivities.  I’m not sure how it started… yes I do, a couple of our friends smoke like chimneys so we were spending half the night outside anyway… but we ended up in the backyard where all my hoops were sitting.

And really, who can resist a hula hoop when they see one?

So the rest of the night was spent outside with everyone hooping, chatting, drinking, and eating smoking or eating popsicles (they have their addictions, I have mine, don’t judge).

It was sheer birthday magic.

Friends

Friends are important, especially for us extroverts.  If I don’t get my time with some wonderful (adult) people on a regular basis I turn into a real… a real unfortunate person to be around.  I’m seeing V start to follow in my footsteps if we don’t get in a few playdates every week… she needs her some friend time.

Every Thursday morning she hangs out with her buddies Samirah and Maya.

And this morning her friend Eliana was at our place while her parents were busy for a few hours.  They spent a sizeable chunk of time running through the house screaming and waving drum sticks over their heads… don’t ask me to try and explain what happens in the mind of 2 and 3 year olds, cause I can’t… then spent the rest of the time jumping on the bed in Verona’s room.

FreePlayLife Academy

Rockstar Tiff over at FreePlayLife has started the FreePlayLife Academy… a challenge every week for the year to help you figure out who you are, love yourself, bust out, and let that awesome that’s inside you out!  I encourage you all to hop in and join… it’s never too late.  Here’s a link to this weeks challenge if you want to.

Anyway, I haven’t been posting anything on here lately cause I’ve been the master slacker (a profound sorry to my loyal readers… both of you) so I figured I might as well post my FPLA assignments… since it’s not like I’ve been posting anything better.

To catch y’all up a little (not all the way, just a little) this month has been focusing on finding our inner super hero.  We made pinterest boards of clothes that we love love love (because you shouldn’t be putting anything on your body unless it makes you feel fan-fucking-tastic)! and used that to find our superhero costume.  I knew immediately what mine was… I’ve had this red dress since college that is awesome… so awesome in fact that I’ve never had the balls to wear it out in public… until this challenge.

We made pictures of our superhero thanks to the marvel website… here is mine.

The red dress is my awesome red dress that is my super hero costume.  The trench coat is because I’m as awesome as the girl in the Cake song Short Skirt, Long Jacket, the wings are the big tattoo of wings I have on my back that I got when I busted out on my own, and the name Ketchup Mama is a twist off Ketchup Chica… one of my pen names from back in the day when I wrote what people in the small town I lived in considered subversive shit.

We then moved on to find our superhero theme song… mine is Shake Senora, the Pitbull remix.  Just listen to this and try not to shake your ass like a crazy person.

And this week we found our superhero accessories.  Mine are…

…my DSLR, a sharpie (my art medium of choice), my fabulous tyedye hoop, crazy nail polish, my the previously mentioned super sexy red dress, and my piano.

So there we are so far.  If you want to join in, do it.  And by that I mean you should all ABSOLUTLY join in… so go do it, like, right now.  And if you want to blog/flickr/facebook/in anyway document it leave me a link cause I’d love to see it.

Dogs and Kids

I am a strong believer that every dog needs a child and every child needs a dog.  Verona, incidentally, has started repeating that to me on a fairly regular basis (apparently I say it too much).  But it’s just the way of the world, some truths cannot be denied.

This is what my room this morning.

David and I had officially been kicked out of our own bed… not that either of us minded too much, how could you not be enamored with this?

When we first had Verona I was admittedly a little worried about how the dogs would be with her.  Daisy, although a sweetheart, can get a little crazy at time and Barney is one of the dimmer bulbs in the chandelier for sure, not to mention approximately 6 times bigger than Verona and 10 times bigger than Finn.  But they are both wonderful with the exception of the almost daily occurence of Barney stealing a waffle, piece of toast, or cheese stick straight out of V’s hand, and their love of the kids is only surpassed by the kids love of them.

DPP :: V

December Photo Project

I love this girl.