Susan’s Journal

I’m in a training class this week, which is kind of nice (well, REALLY nice) because I don’t have to deal with the crap at work. They can’t make me, well not on a large scale, because they sent me to this class and they’re paying over three grand for it. I become a little bit bigger piece of intellectual property to them.Rainlin’s got cheerleading tonight, so I’ve got to load up the kidlets soon. Dylan and I are going to head to Costco and get some ink for my printer. It’s been out FOREVER, but we’ve been broke unfortunately and haven’t been able to refill it. Hooray for payday!

Today’s Song: outkast – hey ya

This is one of those songs you get because your kids beg you to. Well, honestly, I wanted to also, but not until I saw that movie “Flight of the Phoenix.” I know it’s gotten mixed reviews, but it was an all-right movie. I just know I’ll never hear this song again and not think of them dancing under the wing of the plane.

And on this day,
2004… no post.
2003… Some meeting was stressing me out.
2002… Family journal… that didn’t last long.
2001… no post.

Today’s Song: filter – take a picture

After I had finished up Friday Five a few days ago, I thought man, this song would have been a good fit for that day. So here it is, the “awake on my airplane” song. I read somewhere that it’s about the singer showing his dad he can actually make something of himself. Someone else said it was about a person getting drunk and stripping down on an airplane, and telling people to take his picture because he was so drunk that he wouldn’t remember.

I want to say “I have a hum-dinger of a story to tell,” but I’m afraid I’d get harassed about using such a term. I was harassed as such a few months ago for saying I was “jonesing” for something, since apparently “jonesing” is only something a man should say.

I went to lunch with “the guys” today. We went to Chili’s, and there was six of us in all. We piled into one guy’s Durango, and off we went. On the way back, we were stopped at a red light. The light in the other direction went green, and a pickup in the lane closest to us took off, squealing tires, smoke and everything. Dumb kid, I thought. Then I heard the other guys start whooping, and I looked towards the right where the truck had gone by, and a cop was flying in behind him, flipping on his lights. The cop had been sitting two lanes over from him when the idiot took off. We clapped and yaaay’ed. It was hilarious.

1. Do you own a camera? Describe it: Sony M1. It’s a hybrid digital camera/movie taker. It takes movies in .mp4 format, and it’s about the size of a deck of cards.

2. Do you prefer digital or film? Film? What the hell is that? Why should I pay twenty bucks every time I take thirty pictures?

3. When is the last time you posed for a picture? Wow… well, I guess on the cruise. Otherwise, I’m always the one behind the camera.

4. Tell us about your favorite photograph. It’s so hard to have a favorite when you take zillions, but the icon for this post is one of my favorites. Click on it.

5. Use the flash or flash the camera? Flash the camera…?? I try whenever possible to not use the flash, though it can make the picture look fuzzy…

Today’s Song: ac/dc – shook me all night long

From when I was growing up (like I’m 60 now), this was the number one party song. That is, unless you think you know a song that was a better one in the late 80’s…

Today’s Songs: adam ezra – small town, and side to side.

Sure, snow sucks to shovel, but it’s pretty. There’s nothing that can describe the absolute quiet you hear when you go out to your backyard when it’s snowing. It’s not loud like rain–it’s silent. There’s also nothing that compare to digging through three feet of snow, not to clear a driveway but to make a tunnel to your fort. I hear about seven inches of snow in New England, and I wish just a tiny bit that I could be back there in it. Sure, it sucks to drive in, but when you’re a little kid, six inches of snow is just perfect for sledding. We used to sled from my friend’s house, at the top of the street, through three neighbor’s backyards and down into my own, at the bottom of the street. Those days were awesome. When I go back to New England, sure I don’t have any friends back there any more, and I don’t really have any reason to ever go back besides a family that is so small I can count it on one hand, but it’s still packed with memories. I remember riding my bike all over that darned town I lived in, sitting by the water’s edge, working at the local mom and pop’s department store, all that small-town stuff. Some of the songs Adam sings mention things I remember, especially the sound of the wheels on highway 9… and I know I’ll remember those days for the rest of time.

In Basic Training, you’re not supposed to keep ANYTHING in your pockets. Not lint, not paper, and certainly not money. Your money goes into a wallet in your foot locker and isn’t touched unless your flight is going to the store.

I got a few letters while I was in Basic Training–not tons, but a few. One letter was from an old boyfriend of mine who wanted to re-kindle the flame. Granted, he was in Massachusetts and I was in Texas, but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed either. Anyways, I had snuck the letter into my pants pocket at bedtime and brought it into the latrine to read, which some of us did. I read it, tucked it back into my pocket, and then without thinking put those pants into the laundry bag at the foot of my bed and crawled in to go to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to the banging on the door. Our Training Instructor (TI) was a man, so he couldn’t sleep in our dorm. We had to ruch out of bed, throw on our pants and socks, and only then could he come in. Believe you me, he got apeshit if we took too long. He finally came into our dorm and started walking up and down the rows while we threw our beds together. This locker he pulled the door opened to and started poking through, that foot locker he had a girl open with her key and show him how neat it was. When he walked towards my row, I didn’t even look up while I was making my bed, but he stopped at my bed. What did he go at? You guessed it, my laundry bag. He opened it up, started pulling things out. He pulled out my pants and started going through the pockets. It had totally slipped my mind that I had that letter in there; in fact, if I had left it in there, it would have gotten washed with all the other girls’ laundry. (No, we didn’t have friggin maid service, we had three girls in our flight who were assigned to do everyone’s laundry a couple times a week.) He stuck his hand in the pocket of those pants, pulled out that note, and looked at me with that face half-covered with that TI hat. “What is this?” he asked. “What the hell is this?” He opened it up and read the first couple lines of it aloud. I don’t remember what they were, but they were mushy, and I was sure my face was turning fire engine red. Somehow, for some reason, he decided against reading the whole thing allowed, and he shoved the letter at me. “Put this away, I never want to see it again.” Yes Sir, I said, and scurried to my foot locker to put it away. To this day I have no idea why he cut me slack that morning, but he did. *Phew!*

The kids went to Awana at church tonight. Dylan didn’t want to go, really didn’t want to go; but when Scott dropped him off, he said he went right into the classroom, and when I picked the kids up tonight, they both said they had a blast. It’s kind of like Girl Scouts, but church style. Awesome stuff.

And in this picture,

Can you see how much these two look alike? People tell me that all the time. Two peas in a pod, them’s be.

Today’s Song: Eurythmics – Missionary Man

This song was popular around the time of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”… remember that one? It was really weird stop-frame animation with Annie Lennox’s head in a vice. Years later, a friend of mine and I went to a Sting concert with Annie opening for him. We both hoped and hoped she would sing that song, but she didn’t. We’d look at each other, smile, and sing, Well I was born an original sinner, I was born from original sin… then start to laugh. It was awesome. Just in the past week or so, I’ve heard the song twice on the radio while I was working out in the gym. That seems pretty impossible to me, though cool.

And on this day,
2004… no post.
2003… boioioing.
2002… no post.
2001… I was missing LJ. What the hell was wrong with me?

Every year, ever since I was a little girl, it has seemed like I’ve missed the leaves coming out. In the spring, all of the sudden one day, POOF I would notice that all of the trees would have leaves on them, and I’d missed it yet again.

Sometimes I feel like that with my kids. This morning I dropped Dylan off at school, and he walked up to the door and pulled on the handle, then turned around and looked at me. With his hand, he pointed off like Babe Ruth, and I could see his mouth saying, “GO!” He wanted me to leave–he was going into school by himself and I didn’t have to watch him–at least that’s what he thought. So I started inching the van forward, watching in my rear view mirror, and finally he went in the door.

They grow up so fast, like POOF all of the sudden you notice that they’re getting up by themselves, getting dressed by themselves, taking showers by themselves, reading books by themselves… and you can’t help but wonder, when did I miss the leaves coming out?