mini wheats star trek shirt
One of Spanky’s friends was over the other day and while we were all playing Scrabble, she mentioned how she was a big fan of Captain Kirk.
I told her about the Kellogg’s Mini Wheats offer. You collect these tokens off the box, send them in, and get a free Starfleet tee shirt (or just one token and $9.99). Oh boy. We happened to have a box of the cereal in the pantry as Blane loves the stuff.
She reminded me of a friend I had in grade school who was bananas about Star Trek and had made her own geeky Captain Kirk costume one halloween. I really felt for that kid as her costume was quite shabby. I wished I could reach back in time and give that kid one of these shirts. I really wish I could. But I don’t know her anymore.
I do know this other kid who is just as passionate about Star Trek and equally deserving. And since Blane’s been sending me to the store for more, more, more Frosted Mini Wheats, I told the kid if she went to the store and got eight more boxes of it, she could have all the tokens.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we are sick of these damn Mini Wheats. Don’t ever want to see them again. Ever.
So I saved the day by getting some Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Spanky’s looking over the box and says, “Look how thick this guy’s glasses are, I don’t think I’d let him cook anything for me.”
Looking at him closely, I realize he looks like someone else.
This guy!
If you are interested in the Star Trek shirt offer which ends 6/30/10, check out Kellogg’s Star Trek promotions website.
RIP MJ
I get CNN breaking news from my Twitter account in the form of text messages. When I got the one about Michael Jackson being brought to the hospital in cardiac arrest I was sure that was the end. Not too many people live through that if their heart stops at the hospital.
If it stops at home? Really almost no chance. I guess this is why some radio stations were announcing his death before the cable news networks were calling it.
So Kara calls all upset about what she’d just heard on the radio. Eighteen years old, and she’s a fan.
Spanky had a house full of friends here at the time, all sixteen year olds, and when I told them, they were upset. Really upset.
When Blane Jr. was a toddler and I’d take him in the stores, he’d point at the magazine covers and say, “Michael Jackson” and start dancing. He couldn’t say much else, but he could say that.
When I first heard Jackson’s Off the Wall album, I was just a kid, but absolutely mesmerized. How could one person come out with such a perfect set of tunes. One after the other?
Then there was Thriller.
And that moonwalk.
You know the rest.
Here’s an cool video I swiped from TPGoddess. I’ve never seen this before, it’s a Pepsi commercial (I think) that was edited to show Jackson singing a duet of “I’ll Be There” with a child version of himself.
I never could listen to his stuff and not dance.
Spanky’s Facebook status says: “He’s totally choreographing the angels through Thriller, right?”
I can see it.
How’d you like to own a town?
So you wanna be a cowboy/cowgirl?
I find this fascinating, an entire town in Texas is for sale.
That’s right, folks, it comes with an ice house (what is that?), dance hall, peach orchard, a creek, a three bedroom ranch style home (what other style could it be?). They’ve just knocked $288,000 off the price to a grand total of $595,000.
Now hold your horses. This place is in wine country. One hour from Austin. Which means it’s also hill country.
Okay. Let’s just assume you inherited this town. What would you do with it?
Here’s the website if you want more details: Albert, Texas
I’d start by changing the name.
Speaking of wine country…
If you haven’t cast you vote for Max yet, there is still time to help her make the first cut. She only needs 25 more votes. 25!
Hit this link and vote to send her to wine country. Don’t forget to reply to the confirmation email or it won’t count.
Max is a published writer and produced screenwriter. She is also my writing teacher. Yay for teachers! If you have more than one email address, you can vote again. They won’t spam you, I voted last week with four different email addresses and haven’t gotten anything from them other than the confirmation email. They also promise not to spam you.
Just think. Your vote could be THE ONE that helps her make the first cut. That is power.
Just a house
I hardly ever mention this, but I do have a day job pimping houses. I’m a Realtor. I’m not a bigshot, I just do a little business here and there so I can have a job to quit when I get that big writing break. Yeah.
Reason I mention this is I was out showing houses yesterday and saw something amazing. I’ve seen all sorts of collections, but this one was the best. Ever. There was a room full of model trains. Spotless. Rows and rows of shelves on the wall with boxcars, engines, tankers, etc, each car about a foot long, all uniform in size. Some were even in glass cases.
They weren’t ordinary model trains you see in stores, I have never seen any like this before with so much detail. I’m thinking these might have been used in movies.
The rest of the house was unbelievably spotless. And there was not a micron of ugly in there. I looked for it. One little mistake in cleanliness or tastelessness, something to make me believe the people in this house were not perfect.
I passed by the oven and noticed these foiled potatoes baking in there. The foil was folded so beautifully, I have never seen a potato wrapped that way and I couldn’t help but laugh myself silly. I looked on every wall for a family portrait, I mean, what do people who live like this look like?
There were none.
It was the most perfectly staged home I have ever seen, and I’ve seen thousands.
If those potatoes weren’t in the oven I’d have guessed no one lived there. People do that, fill an empty house with furniture because an empty home is extremely difficult to sell. You wouldn’t think, but that is how it is in this area. Buyers get the impression something is wrong with it if it didn’t sell while the homeowner still lived there.
So figuring out if a house is really vacant is something I like to do if I’m working with a buyer. I have one test to figure it out. I open the fridge and look for milk.
Funny isn’t it?
So many houses tell a family’s story. The ones who leave the framed photos of the family all over tell the most. There was one today with the children’s photos through the years from birth to graduation. The bedrooms didn’t have that “personalized” look to them, they all looked like guest rooms but were worn as if some child had grown up there.
It was also missing girly things. Mom things. Something about this place told me one man lived there, a father, and this house was just too big for him now. I opened the door to the garage and there he was working away with his wood shop tools. He didn’t talk much and he looked so damned lonely it made me want to burst out crying. I hate it when the homeowner is there because I get to put a real face to that story and sometimes, like this time, it is too much for me.
Anyway. I hope all of you kids are doing all you can do for your dads today.
And all you dads out there, have a happy Father’s Day.
Help Needed
That’s Her!
It looked more like a college than a high school graduation. The floor of the arena had over 1400 chairs lined up for the graduates who poured in from four different entrances.
From way up there in the nose bleed section, they all looked like marching ants, identically dressed in maroon caps and gowns. There was a Jumbotron showing random angles, but we really didn’t think we’d know which one was Kara until they called her name right before handing her the diploma.
I was determined to know where she was amongst this sea of newborn adults for the entire ceremony, not just at the end. I wanted to hang on to every single moment of her childhood, young adulthood, to her.
I quickly developed a method to find her. First, I placed an imaginary alphabetically ordered grid over the seats and predicted the section she would sit.
Next, I kept an eye on the entrance that fed kids into that area. I ruled out the tall kids, or any of them who didn’t have long, straight blonde hair. That might seem easy enough, but they all looked the same height from my perspective, and almost all the girls have long blonde hair. This is Texas.
I had to yank out the secret weapon.
I ran those kids’ “walk” though my “mamma-knows-her-kid” filter.
Kara has always had this walk like a ballerina. She tip toes with these light, brisk steps while her upper body tilts a little forward. Like she can’t wait to get somewhere (she can’t). Her head glides smoothly with each step. Reminds me also of a hummingbird.
When she’s nervous, throw in a dramatic arm swing.
That swing is what I noticed first.
“That’s her!” I yelped, and finished to myself, That’s my girl.
It was. And she will always be my Sweetpea, my girl.
Yay Kara!!!
Still Here
Lately I’ve almost forgotten I’ve got a blog. I’ve been doing a lot of writing elsewhere, rewriting my spec script for contests, a visual writing class, and then other busy things.
It’s been rough as I haven’t had the energy left over to do much blogging or take photos or get out in the sunshine. Now that my submission is in and the writing class is winding down, I should have more time to get back to The Show.
I’m still exercising like a maniac, that’s six months of good solid habit. I feel great and continue to push a little harder with each workout.
Got some exciting news, my son Blane and his wife are expecting their first baby at the end of October! Of course you know I will completely take over and spoil that to the bone. I haven’t thought of a grandmother name yet. I really don’t care for those names and would actually like to be called by my real name, “Kitty.”
I know this is odd. I don’t care. When I talked to my mom about it, she kept saying “ahahhaaha you are going to be a granny.”
I know twenty-five year olds who are “grannies.” I will never be one of them. I cuss and go to rock concerts and don’t even own a rocking chair. I need to get one of those.
I was at Blane Jr.’s house a couple of nights ago helping him paint a room. We were up at 2AM and I asked him if this was usual for him to be up so late on a work night. He said he was both a night owl and an early bird.
Now I’m not much of an advice giver unless someone asks, but I told him he might want to use the upcoming months to get ahead on his sleep. Once the kids come in the picture, there’s not a good night’s sleep coming for at least the next 21 years.
Then I told him about the first morning I woke up with him after we got out of the hospital. Kids, even when adults never outgrow hearing baby stories about themselves.
I was worried I wouldn’t hear him cry during the night because he sounded like a newborn kitten when he cried. I was just a teenager and had never been around babies. I was clueless and I knew it.
So that first morning I woke up after a full night’s sleep. And my baby was gone. I went into my parent’s room and found my mom wiping him down with a washrag.
Me: What ya doin’?
Mom: Giving him a sponge bath.
Me: Where is the sponge and why don’t we put him in the tub instead?
Mom: You can’t get their belly buttons wet!
There were tons of people around me for the following weeks giving out massive amounts of advice. That got old pretty quickly and you know, you look at these people and look at their kids and think, I really don’t want this person’s advice.
So I went to the library and checked out every parenting book I could get my hands on. When people would dish out advice, my mom would say (with sarcasm), “She won’t do it, that’s not what the books says.”
She and the old hens would cackle about this, but you know me, I’m fine with people getting a good laugh on me. In the end, I’ve raised (am still raising) a good batch of kids.
