Everybody swimmin' at Chico! Heidi, Rich, Addie, Summer, Kelli, TJay, Matt, Jake, and Amie. 

ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY: Baby Matthew

On May 27, 1981 I got my third baby brother. He was a fair little cutie pie with reddish hair and a curious spirit. Now he has a mini-me! Happy Birthday, Matty!!!

When You're Here, You're Family

Due to the fact that I feel more like reading than writing tonight, you get to read something someone else wrote, taken from good ol' McSweeny's Lists Page. I dedicate this entry to my sister Dana, who used to be the Vice President or something of the Olive Garden.

REASONS I DON'T FEEL LIKE I'm FAMILY WHEN AT THE OLIVE GARDEN
By Matthew Rorem
The hostess never hints that she'd really like it if I went to law school.
The busboy is always very polite about denying my requests for money.
The waiter never hits me, pulls my hair, or tells on me for things I never did.
The manager never cheats on my dad.
The dishwashers don't like it when I hug them goodbye.

There's a lot more where that came from.

I just finished the audio book of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated , but sadly I cannot recommend it. There are too many F-bombs and too much talk about sex for me to cheer for it. It was especially embarrassing because instead of quietly reading a book and skipping the naughty parts, I was listening to it full blast while I was working on the new house and couldn't get to the boom box and tear off my rubber gloves and skip the naughty parts fast enough!I love Jews, and especially smart little Jewish boys who publish their first novels at age 22 and write historical fiction about their trips to discover their roots in Ukraine, but not when they make up stories about their Grandpas being the gigilos of the shtetls and stuff like that. I am on the waiting list for his second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a 9/11 mystery--??) and for Nick Hornby's 31 Songs (Livingston's Library has only one of everything-- lots of audiobooks which are useful when one is painting one's entire house on one's own), so I'll let you know if I like those better.

Okay, more later. Must. Sleep.

Rich's brother's wife, Kelli, is visiting us with their two kids, TJay and Summer. Jess is flying B52 Bombers out of Diego Garcia for the next few months, so Kelli is passing some of the time with us. Addie and Heidi love when TJay and Summer come to visit. Here is a picture of the girls playing "Bears" last night. 

We saw the geese taking their goslings across the street on our way to the park (You can see the roof of our aparment in the background of this photo, beyond the white pool house). 

Addie & TJay eat fruit snacks in the tunnel at Pompey's Playground 

Addie & Heidi and another little girl at the park this morning 

Addie going down the slide 

CAPTAIN FURIOUS

She has her moods.

Big Head Tori

It's just freaky.

I saw a commercial for an upcoming made for TV movie starring the darling Tori Spelling. Here's what Tori reminds me of:

When I was a little girl my sisters and I had a small collection of Barbies and lots of makeshift furniture and clothes. One Christmas, I got a Candie doll--remember her? She was like Barbie only bigger. Like in real life, she'd be 6'6" and 250 punds next to an average woman. So Candie didn't fit in the clothes or the house or the car. She was just an amazon. But sometimes I would take off her head and put it on a Barbie so she could have some fun, although she looked ridiculous. Well, Tori Spelling looks exactly like the Candie-headed Barbie.

Seriously--how her skinny neck holds up that enormous noggin just boggles my mind!

Funny

Somebody just emailed me and asked me if my stepmom was really 29 (like on Bill & Ted). Um, no--lucky for me and maybe too bad for her, but she is not 29. She's more than 36 but less than 55, and she kicks butt in the FBI. (Oops--I hope that doesn't get her fired or something).