Now that should do the trick for a sticky monkey!

OK, someone help me, one of you non-etiquette-ly challenged types (Joke?) - I confess to the horror of putting reply cards in my wedding invitations. We did not have entrée choices, I just needed to know who was coming and who was not. This was more than ten years ago, but now having read Poppy’s post about wedding invitation blunders, I am horrified that I committed some gross faux-pas. (But my mother-in-law said it was ok!) Why are reply cards the devil? Just so you know, though, I did self-address and pre-stamp and took out the tissue and everything else. But those reply cards haunt my dreams now! Don’t hate me because I was raised by wolves.

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Last night H. went to see the new Pink Panther movie. I, having been sick for-freaking-ever and in addition having had an acute bout with a stomach virus that lasted for twelve nasty hours on Wednesday night and left me feeling desiccated like unto the Sahara desert, decided to stay home. I had no burning desire to see the new Pink Panther. When H. got home and told me that it had been like a movie-going festival, that many people there had babies and toddlers that were running around during the movie, and groups of people were chatting all through the movie, and a girl two seats down from him was on her cell phone throughout the whole movie – I once again remembered why I do not go see first-run movies in the movie theatre on weekend evenings. Because I am old and crotchety that way. Anyway, my sister-in-law had offered to have all the children at her place to babysit; I kept Terzo with me, but sent the older two boys. (Probably should have kept Seggie home also, as he seems to have cycling-malarial-symptoms syndrome (yes, I made that up).) Did I do anything exciting, house to myself and all? Paint some woodwork? Read a good book? Watch the Olympics opening ceremonies (bah!)? No, I went to bed. I consumed a giant bowl of cashew chicken and another giant bowl of homemade rice pudding and went to bed.

I get so nervous when people don't post for a while. Suse over at Pea Soup has not posted since Wednesday, an eternity in my book.
And I am irrationally (I stress irrationally) terrified she’s left us.
I do this to all the blogs I read regularly – Blackbird hasn’t posted in two days? She hates us. Badger hasn’t posted? She’s dead.
Or in prison.
I WORRY. Yes, I know I am a dork. I used to read this blog called Simple Things (for a while, I thought Pea Soup and Simple Things were written by the same person…) and she stopped posting sometime last fall. Just...stopped. And I worry. Is she ok? Did something horrible happen to her? Did she just get bored? Or maybe, just maybe, other people HAVE LIVES. Hmmm. Anyone know where I can get one of those, cheap? Perhaps I could start by getting a babysitter and going to see a movie with my husband. Instead of sleeping all Friday evening, waking up from time to time only long enough to stick a boob into Terzo’s gaping maw.

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Oh, God help us. Because Jessa’s right – Ethan Hawke’s books are crap. The movies have to be worse. I have a special place in my heart for little ole Ethan Hawke because – little known fact – he was in my freshman class first semester. He was as big an asshole as any high school actor who suddenly finds himself attending one of the premier theatre programs in the country, having “his art” taken seriously (at least by the profs, if not his fellow students), and being required to take a loser history of theatre class with those production types who walk around in painted-up jeans and grotty sneakers. (Yeah, well, at least WE shower! And don’t freaking burst into song at the drop of a hat!) This is not to say he was the only one – all of the actors were assholes, just as all of us production/techie types were obnoxious and loud and profane – for freshman theatre majors, this attitudinal behavior was practically a requirement. At any rate, due to this minor brush with fame (no he wouldn’t recognize me or my name, I was just part of the obnoxious mass), I follow his career in the same sort of way I look at car wrecks. I may know they’re horrible but I have to look? I know he can’t act, and I think he perpetually looks like he needs a good scrub, and God knows how he landed Uma Thurman, but I still have to read his crap writing and watch his mostly-bad movies. He left school after first semester to do “Dead Poets”, and possibly it’s the only decent thing in which I’ve seen him.

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Snippets:

Peg, this is for you. Mostly because I just enjoy way too much the phrase “biowillie.”

WE know libraries are cool.

God, I am so sick of all these dodgy authors. Just write a decent book and shut up about it. If you must make things up, just write another novel, please.

The first Joanna Trollope book I ever read was The Choir, and I was caught. While even she admits her books are not intellectual, they are immensely readable, and her characters draw you into their lives, leaving you feeling with them and almost always wanting more. Is there anything better you can say about a book? Trollope’s thirteenth novel Second Honeymoon is due out in March.

Does anyone really care about the Olympics anymore? Look, some American speedskater just won a medal. Yawn. I am with Bode Miller on this one – it used to be an honor just to go to the Olympics. Now it’s all about the medal count, and the endorsements and cash, and those ridiculous, melodramatic human-interest stories. No, I do NOT care if Jane Doe’s kitten fell into the frozen lake when Jane was six thereby inspiring years of dedicated figure skating practice, and I also don’t really care if she wins a medal. Jane, not the (presumably dead) kitten.

Speaking of memorable Olympic moments, back when it at least *felt* like the games were real, does anyone else remember Torvill and Dean? Now THEY were incredible. As were Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner. And the 1980 American hockey team. Ah, now those were the days, my friends! The only recent Olympic story that even remotely comes close – Sarah Hughes’ figure skating upset last winter Olympics.

Oh, so if she'd had *proper documentation* the HUMAN HEAD IN HER CARRY-ON *wouldn't* have been a problem? And of what, pray tell, does proper documentation for schlepping around a human head CONSIST?

I just changed my ringtone on my cell phone to the theme for “The Godfather.” This makes me irrationally happy.

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"You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you."

Or maybe I should be using a quote from "The Eiger Sanction"?

"Get out of here. Either of you friggin' vampires ever touch this telescope, you're gonna need surgery to get it out of your ass!"

Or maybe
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd draw the line at hauling ice."

Anyone else care to weigh in here?