To Pittsburgh and back...

We are back from the eastward trip. It was good. There was Moon police, La Quinta (no problema), small children played, birds talked, old people cried, blood was shed by multiple people, dogs fought, food was eaten (then cleaned out of orthodontic appliances by small, brightly colored foul) and sleep was had in a bed way too small.

Mau: Wasn’t there a song about Moon police in the 80’s?
Me: Do you mean “Dream Police”? That was Cheap Trick in the late 70’s. (singing) “They live inside of my head…”
Mau: Oh yeah.

It was nice seeing my dad and meeting his g/f. Kerry’s dog, Zoe, got riled up by Kali and growled at Patty (Dad’s woman) and she shook in fear then cried. That was an uncomfortable moment but it was over quickly. Kali was very well behaved in the hotel and at Kerry’s zoo, I mean, house.

Birds that talk are pretty cool. Coco is an African grey. Most of his phrases come from his previous owners who cannot take care of him anymore so he likes to say “Hi” to names we don’t know but he also counts to 10 and sounds like a train.

We got back to find the heat would not work but Mr. Wu came over, worked his magic and we are warm again.

Huh? I'm freezing!

It was 70 degrees yesterday. Today there is a dusting of snow on the Jetta and a wind chill of 26 degrees.

I put up the Halloween pics for this year so check them out.

schlechter Hund!

Sky is spouting off German right and left lately. It must be coming together in his head or they are covering more conversational phrases in class.

Kali decided to add to the destruction of memoirs by chewing up the video tape I have all of Sky’s Kung-Fu tournaments footage on. Cool, thanks dog. I did call around and find a place that says they can salvage most of it and stick it on DVD for a fairly low price so we can get that taken care of next week.

We had quite a thunderstorm last night. I should says storms…it was all night. Very strange for November. They say we are to get more storms today and tonight then the temperature will drop dramatically to what is normal for this time of year with possible flurries this weekend. Odd weather.

We got the car back and the repair was covered by the service plan. I am so glad we bought that or it would have been a hefty $350. We only had to pay $25 for partial towing charge…whew, what a relief.

What a morning!

The toilet had been acting funny the past week but it seemed to work fine. I went to bed and 3 hours later was woken by the sound of water running. I jump up and run to the bathroom to find a flood. The tank was overflowing. I tried turning the knob behind the toilet but couldn’t get it to budge. I ran downstairs to shut off the water to the house and the second I open the basement door, I hear water running down there. Oh jeez. I run down to find water pouring through the ceiling onto boxes of books we have stored down there. Great. Yes, books like baby books, yearbooks, expensive & irreplaceable books and magazines. I turned the water off and just cried. Sky woke up from all the commotion and told me the water stopped running upstairs. I spent the next hour salvaging all the books I could. Skylar had to be at bowling at 9am so I went back to bed but could not sleep.

I got up and waited for Mau to get home with coffees and the car so I could run Sky up there. I get a phone call from Mau. The car broke down. Jeez, what next? Same Focus problem Edr0 had with his car…the ignition gets stuck and the key won’t turn. I hear this is a common Focus issue but there is no recall. I figured Mau had enough to deal with at the moment so I didn’t tell him about the flood. One thing at a time and that thing was getting the car out of a no parking zone before it was ticketed. We have a service plan we paid out the ass for when we bought the car so hopefully that covers it minus deductible. Since it is a Saturday, we will have to wait until Monday to find out and I’m sure it will have to be transported to a Ford dealership too. I hear this is quite a pricey repair (of course, why wouldn’t it be with us involved?) if it is not covered…like $800ish. And I haven’t gotten paid since the beginning of October. As always, excellent timing. It would be nice if the Jetta was running but sadly, it is not. Mau borrowed Edr0’s car to get home and Mary Jo is going to give him a ride to work tonight. That’s as far as we have gotten. Did I ever mention how much I hate cars?

What? We raised a smart kid? This cannot be...

We had the first parent-teacher conference this year. It went surprisingly well. Unbeknownst to us, she says Sky is very smart and missed the honor roll by just a few points. His freak out sessions have nearly disappeared in class this year and he has stopped fighting with his arch nemesis, Jennifer, entirely. I guess he is maturing and he has really tried this year as far and homework and reading books without being held down and forced to. Yes, I am still talking about Skylar. His fondness of books definitely did not come from Mau, whose idea of a good book involves pop-up pages. Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with pop-up books.

FunkyB & Ted have agreed to partake in the annual Thanksgiving feast. FunkyB heard my infamous sweet potato casserole calling his name and Ted just likes food. Really, I have never had this guy complain about anything set on the dinner table and he irks the dog by never leaving anything for her to clean up.

After that, considering Mau works on Thanksgiving, we are going to Pittsburgh because my dad and his g/f are flying in there to visit my sister. I’m not sure why I want to pack up the dog and kid, spend money we don’t have on a hotel and drive 5 hours to spend multiple days with family but I guess they are pretty cool as far as family goes. We will see what my comments are AFTER I get back I suppose.

It must be that time of the year. The freaky guys are back in the park. Kari and I have encountered a particular one that we are keeping our eye on but for now is known as “Creepy Music Dude” and knows us by several different names.

Can't you see the complicated physics theories going through his head? He's into that now, since he's got glasses and all. 

Me and my big mouth...now a sore mouth again

That pesky unbracketed wire was on my last nerve. It had created a canker sore on the inside of my lip the likes of which has never been seen by man before. If my mouth dried out at all, the wire would stick to the canker sore leaving an indentation. Yeah, ouch! I consulted some of my fellow braced and decided to call the ortho. They got me in and fixed me right up. The assistant put a coil/spring looking thingie on the wire so it’s much more comfortable now. Fashionable? Uh no but I will pay that price right now. Since she had to take the wire off and my ligatures were very faded, she did a small adjustment and changed the color for me. I went with dark red this time in keeping with the approaching holiday season. My teeth sure feel it though…very tight on my front bottom teeth. A little ibuprofen and I can eat fairly normally (normally meaning what’s normal for someone with braces which is more equivalent to an 80 yr old man eating with dentures).