Jen on the Edge

For my final February photo, I give you nothing but the absolute very best:

Yes, the Boy is back by popular demand. At eleven months of age, my nephew is a charmer and the ladies just love him. The men too. One look at him (or a photo of him) and I am instantly smitten anew. He has that effect on a number of people — his parents, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, and most definitely his two cousins.

And thus ends my experiment with daily photos. As with NaBloPoMo, I have discovered that nothing ensures writer’s block quite like setting some sort of daily goal, so it will be quite a while before I do something like this again.

Have any of you seen the TV show “Dead Like Me“? Pete heard good things, so we’ve been cruising through it the past couple of weeks. The writing is that wonderful combination of funny and intelligent and I’m loving every minute of it. Too bad there were only two seasons and we’re well into Season 2. We’ve noticed a new listing for it on IMDB, but we can’t tell if it’s a new season or a movie. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

The music was mostly done by Stewart Copeland — oh he of The Police — but there was one song (not by him) that we kept hearing during Season 1 that really grabbed us. After some searching, I found out that it was “Boom Boom Ba” by Metisse and I have since downloaded it to my iPod and listened to it approximately eleventy squillion times this week.

Enjoy.

So I owe y’all a play review and some photos…

Remember how I said that Elegant was chosen to hand out programs? As Pete and I were walking up to school yesterday, I remarked that I was certain our girl was watching for us. Not one second later we heard, “Hi Mommy and Daddy!” and out she came:

You can definitely see the purple footwear in that photo.

And then she did her job and handed me a program…

… followed by handing one to Pete, who thought he’d sneak in a quick smooch too:

We went into the auditorium and Elegant asked us to sit near the door, as that’s where she would be coming in and was also near her spot on the stage. Soon thereafter, the actors arrived:

And now for some bad news. Some dumb ass (me) forgot to charge the camera batteries and it was at this precise moment in the action that the camera crapped out. I’m truly sorry.

I’m not going to take you through the entire play (”Tiki Tiki Tembo”), but will tell you it was so much better than the Greek tragedy the third graders did last fall, which was so boring that Pete and I didn’t even bother to pay attention. Yes, we are lame parents.

An important thing to know about Elegant: She gets stage fright. I’m not kidding. One would think that she would be a natural in front of an audience, but it’s actually quite the opposite. She freezes. Completely and totally. She loves the arts, she loves plays, she loves music. She does not however like to be in front of crowds. So she was there on the stage yesterday, but not really getting into the singing and dancing.

The play itself was very entertaining. Nice music, enthusiastic acting, and even a cute ribbon dance at the end. All in all, a lovely 30 minutes.

The second grade play is today. All second graders will be participating and all were instructed to wear a white long sleeve shirt and black pants as their base costume.

Think about that for a moment.

My second grader, Elegant, is supposed to wear black and white, just like everyone else? She’s supposed to blend in? This is Elegant — the child whose entire wardrobe is based on the principle that pink and purple are basic colors and that they match with everything and are appropriate year round and at all occasions.

Does anyone reading this seriously believe that Elegant even has a plain white t-shirt or that she’s going do anything plain? Of course not.

Starting from the top…

Elegant opted for a hot pink hair doodad with a butterfly for her very perky hair. I think that style adds three inches to her height today.

The shirt is a lovely white blouse with ruffles at the collar AND cuffs. She does have on a white short sleeve t-shirt underneath for a little extra warmth, and it’s probably the only plain thing in her wardrobe and a hand-me-down from Graceful at that.

And there’s jewelry, natch. Tiny little blue sapphire studs, a pink and purple charm necklace made by Lori, and a silver and sapphire bracelet. Elegant’s birthstone is sapphires, so she likes to wear them, although she would prefer that she’d been born in a month with a brighter stone.

The pants are black leggings that are actually a little short, which gives Elegant an Audrey Hepburn vibe. (Does anyone remember those black pants Audrey used to wear?) Plus it means that people will really notice El’s socks and shoes, which are the piece de resistance.

As for socks and shoes, Elegant went with purple socks with rainbows and purple suede Mary Jane shoes with embellished flowers.

So the girl had an extra spring in her step as she went out the door today. She’s very excited about the play AND she was chosen to hand out programs beforehand.

Yes, I’ll do a play review — hopefully with photos — later today.

Oh my holy hell! I am SO going on a date with this guy:

Yep, Mr. Darcy and I are going to have a wonderful evening together, just the two of us.

How? Because Mr. Colin Firth has put himself up for auction for charity.

Of course, my winning this auction (currently at $6,800) is going involve my using a real whole lot of Pete’s money. Do you think he’ll mind too much?

Because I think it’s a most worthy cause and I really don’t mind helping out. And, if it means I have to fly all the way to England and go on a date, then I think I can manage.

Our girls have art at school only once per week, which I think is just plain wrong, but that’s a gripe for another time. In art class, the students explore different types of art and experiment with techniques and materials. The art teachers keep all of the finished projects all year and then send them home in June. Pete and I eagerly anticipate the bringing home of the portfolios because there are always some wonderful surprises. We sit together as a family and go through each piece and the girls tell us what they were learning or some other story about their art. Afterward, the girls decide what they want to hang in their rooms and we decide what will hang in the Jenworld Art Gallery:

This is the stairway going down to the basement. If we ever build our dream house, I’m planning to put the art gallery in a much more prominent location, but for now this is just where we have space at this time in this house.

We have other art around the house, including in the little bathroom on the first floor:

The one on the left is by Elegant and is a tree in fall. When I saw it hanging with her classmates’ art at school in October 2006, I was so excited because I just knew exactly where I was going to hang it, but then I had to wait eight months until I could actually get my hands on it. The painting on the right is actually a collage that Graceful did. She painted different parts, cut them out, and put them all together into one marvelous whole. Again, as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly where I would be hanging it.

And speaking of art, I need to end this and go pick up Elegant. She has art classes after school on Tuesdays and today was going to be working with clay, which always leads to interesting results.

Look at this photo and see if you can find three themes in my life today:

1. I got new shoes and I already heart them very much. These are by Keen and they arrived today. I could have bought them locally, but why spend $90 (even at Zappos) when one can find them new in the box on eBay for about two-thirds that, including shipping. Yes, I do love me some eBay.

2. The book, which I’ve read before, but it’s just one of those that I revisit every couple of years.

3. Look to the left. Do you see boxes and stacks of papers? Why yes, I do have another mailing going out for work. This one will reach 1,300 people and has four inserts, so I’ll be spending a lot of time at my kitchen table this week and next.

Remember that most excellent video with Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon? Jimmy Kimmel has come back with his response and it’s GREAT!

Matt vs. Ben? Anyone have an opinion?

We spent over seven hours in the car this weekend and listed to “The Best of Queen” two or three times.

This is Graceful’s favorite.

And this is Elegant’s, which Graceful had thought was called “Reginald P. Carlove.”

Pete doesn’t have a single favorite, but he does like this one a lot.

When listening to “Fat Bottomed Girls,” Graceful said, ” ‘ Fat Bottomed Girls make the rockin’ world go ’round.’ What’s THAT mean???”

And this is my current Queen fave.

Just for kicks, here’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” because it deserves some serious respect.

We pulled out an old Van Morrison album last night, so that might just be our next music rut.

A conversation while we were at my parents’ house this weekend:

Graceful, “Aunt Meredith, how old are you?”

Mer, “Thirty-five.”

Graceful, “You’re old enough to be president now.”

Mer, something like, “You’re right, I am, but I’m not well-funded enough to run.”

Jen, clearly with Satan sitting on my shoulder, trying to stir up trouble, “Yeah but Graceful, what would you do if Aunt Mer ran as a Republican? Would you still vote for her?”

Graceful, looking very concerned, “Hmmm, I’d have to think about that.”

Looks of dismay from my sister and step-mother, both of whom are Republicans. In case you haven’t figured this out yet, we here in Jenworld are Democrats, including the children. They pretty much believe that George W. Bush is the most evil person alive. We’ve tried to explain that, no, it’s actually Dick Cheney who is of greater concern. Bush, after all, is not smart enough to do any real damage. And, yes, my children do also believe that Bush is of sub-par intelligence.

My stepmother, “I can’t believe how you’re brainwashing your children.”

Jen, apparently itching for a fight, “They’re my children and I’m raising them to think the way I do, which is part of what parenting is about.”

At that point, my sister, sensing trouble, wisely changed the subject to Obama vs. Hillary, which got us on more neutral ground, if you can believe that.

DNA is a really weird fucking thing.