When I was a kid I was a BONKERS Michael Jackson fan. Despite his wealth and fame there was a apart of me that always felt sorry for him. Basically I felt he had this huge crazy family from Hell. What could you say-the Jackson family was tabloid manna from Heaven during the 80's. I would tell people, "If you had a family like that you'd be weird too." My reasoning was that if I had to choose between hanging out with Bubbles the chimp or Tito and LaToya I'd hang with the primate too. When I was in elementary school it seemed to me that Michael was the one blessed with the best voice, dance moves and personality of the bunch. The rest of the Jackson family, uh..........
Now with his passing and the mess afterwords I keep thinking to myself, "With a family like that no wonder Michael's in an early grave!"
What can I say, my inner 8-year-old misses him. But in the same way my inner 8-year-old misses Jem and The Hologram dolls and ice cream cone cereal.
I know scandal followed him later on in life. But when I was five Michael Jackson was my favorite. Thriller was the very first album I ever owned. I played it so much I wore out my cassette. Every time someone plays something from Bad or Thriller I'm a kid again. I miss 80's music in general. It seemed you could turn on the radio and hear variety, not just the same ten songs.
It's just a little jarring to be in your late 20's and have your childhood favorite pass away. Yeah he was creepy later on in life. But the man gave the world some great music.
You know, the litter from "Jon and Kate plus 8." Michelle watches the show occasionally since she has a soft spot for what she calls 'the baby shows.' The TV show to me seems like an excuse to watch Jon and Kate be miserable with their large family of young children. As a parent you're going to have bad days. But at least you're not having a bad day with eight kids in tow, right? But reality shows thrive on drama and sadomasochism when you think about it.
With all the tabloid drama going on with the parents I just feel so sorry for the kids. When I was growing up I thought it was embarrassing that my church knew that my parent's marriage was rocky. I can't imagine what the kids are going through knowing that the entire country is aware that their parent's relationship is in shambles. It seems everybody is going 'Jon did this' and 'Kate's so hateful' that no one seems to care about what the children are dealing with right now. Poor things.
Just for the record I rarely feel sympathy for folks in the spotlight. One time Hubby went off on me that I was a cold person since I don't have any sympathy for Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan for screwing up their lives in front of the world. But the Gosselin kids didn't choose to be there. They just have to be the ones with a front row seat to the madness.
I feel bad when I don't post or check up on people for long periods. But what can I say......life's been chaotic.
-Michelle's graduated from preschool. She starts Kindergarten next August. My Baby's growing up!!! But the amount of paperwork you have to deal with is insane. It blows me away how many hoops you have to jump through for your kid to start school. But......my baby's growing up!!!
-My husband had some minor surgery done. I have to admit after having a baby, I've come to the conclusion that men are wimps. *wink*
-There was a ton of layoffs at my job. Luckily yours truly still has gainful employment. Sometimes being at the bottom has it's blessings with today's economy. Hours were drastically cut this Spring, but things have gone back to normal for now. I'm still saving money because right now you just don't know how things are going to work out. Well....you should try to save money anyway.:)
-On a more fun note I got to see Fleetwood Mac at the Sprint Center! They're still play great and Stevie's still beautiful. I don't think that's her real hair or boobs.......but she's still gorgeous.*wink*
One of my favorite jokes on Bullwinkle and Rocky was that Frostbite Falls (the town where the characters lived for those who don't watch cartoons) had a newspaper that printed that same story everyday. Being the early 60's the paper just printed the headlines: COLD WAR CONTINUES and PLANE CRASHES. The joke was that the editor just changed the date and sold the same paper everyday since there was always an airplane crashing and the Cold War was still very hot at the time.
I had to use that pun. :)
Anyway at work we hand out free USA Todays and constantly have our flat screens in the lobby on CNN. So like it or not my job keeps me in the loop of current events constantly. But in the past few months with the economic meltdowns and other misc things going on with our universe I'm starting to feel the papers could print the headline THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL everyday and just change the date. Sometimes life imitates cartoons.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist. *shrugs*
But as long as I have a job and can take care of Michelle that's really all that matters in life as far as I'm concerned. :)
...or there's some down right tacky inauguration souvenirs being made? I was channel flipping with Michelle and somehow stopped on the Home Shopping channel. They were selling some iffy items for Obama's inauguration that were just ...goofy.
But then again I don't think you can sell anything on the HSM without it being somewhat tacky in some form. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know this is late, but RIP Patrick McGoohan. When I first discovered The Prisoner in high school I had this conversation more than a few times.
Other person: I loved The Prisoner back in the day. Isn't Patrick McGoohan dead? Me: No, he just did Braveheart. Other person: I could have sworn he was dead. Me: Uh, no.
Speaking of The Prisoner AMC will let you stream the episodes for free. Makes me feel better for not getting the DVD set yet. :)
I feel bad when I've been away for LJ for a while. But I've had to work a ton of overtime this week at work so............
I'm so relieved Obama won! I'm not going to lie. McCain reminded me of that cranky old uncle that's pissed off that things aren't exactly the way they were in 1961. To be honest I'm burnt out of hating the president, his administration and the government for the past few years.
In Obama's favor, Bush has set the presidential bar so low Obama can do just about anything and look good in comparison. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Does anybody else think Led Zeppelin touring without Robert Plant, well, isn't Led Zeppelin? I understand that you can have the few remaining members of a band who are alive get together for a 'reunion' tour and people eat it up with no questions asked. But Robert Plant's charisma was such a large factor for the Zep's success. You had to have something special to screech about hobbits and somehow sell a bazillion 8-tracks in the process. Sorry, no Plant-no Zeppelin.
But then Robert Plant was one of the guys who helped me through puberty. Between him and David McCallum no wonder I have a thing for pretty blondes. As long as they look like David McCallum and Robert Plant circa 1968 that is. *wink* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michelle and I had a wonderful Halloween. She dressed up as a butterfly and I wore my old 50's girl costume. I originally wanted to dress up as Hannah Montana, but Hubby said it be a little creepy for me to dress up as a underage girl. *shrug* So I got out my poodle skirt outfit with the petticoats and oxford shoes. With daylight savings time throwing our usual Halloween schedule out of whack we went to our church for their Fall Festival first. Michelle played the carnival games, rode a hayride and played with her buddies. By the time we were done it had gotten dark so we went back to our neighborhood with Hubby and hit the trick-or-treat route. We both got a lot of compliments and candy. :) It was funny how many houses gave me candy for dressing up along with my kid! I love this holiday!
You have to love Halloween. It's almost the only holiday that adults can have as much fun out of it as children. :)
Well no big deal, but more of a odd moment. We had Ty Pennington-the guy from Extreme Makeover:Home Edition-stay at our property last week. It was the first time I've meet a celebrity outside of a convention or meet & greet. (I don't count local newscasters, DJ's or politicians. I've meet too many of those to list or care anymore.) Well he was very polite and courteous. Us up at the front desk spent the rest of the day talking about how gracious he was. It got me thinking.....
Why are people surprised when a celebrity behaves properly in public?
Now granted I live in the midwest so unlike folks who live in LA we don't have daily run-ns with fame. But whenever people talk about celebrity encounters they always seem shocked that the celeb had any manners at all. Do people assume that if you meet a celeb they're going to try to gnaw off your ankle? I always figured that the tabloids try to find the worst behavior in Hollywood and display it for our entertainment. Just kooky when you think about it.
The irony is that I had never watched an episode of Extreme Makeover:Home Edition 'till that Sunday. I recorded that particular episode on the Tivo for Michelle since the Jonas Brothers made a appearance. (Honestly when do those boys and Miley Cyrus sleep? I'm starting to think Disney has a cloning program under the Magic Kingdom!) Never underestimate the power of cosmic coincidences. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking of celebs and irony am I the only one who thinks it's funny that Ringo Starr doesn't want anyone to send him fanmail anymore? I can't help but think of the Simpsons episode that showed him still answering fanmail from the 60's. I always thought it was the sweetest Simpsons rock star cameo ever! Maybe Ringo finally got around to answering all the fanmail from when the Beatles were together and now he feels he doesn't have to deal with it anymore? :P
Okay, maybe I'm giving Ringo the benefit of the doubt. But we only have two Beatles left and he didn't marry a one-legged nutcase. I'll leave it at that.
I know he had been sick for a long time.......but I miss him. The man was a true class act. Something that Hollywood is lacking right now. My Hubby/me/my sister had a joke that Paul Newman was really a space robot since it simply wasn't human to be that perfect. He was proof that you could be a movie star and still be a nice guy/keep your marriage together/keep your head on straight/keep your career going for decades.
*sigh* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I like to head to the downtown library and scroll through the microfilms of old newspapers that's located in the basement. (Because libraries always keep the coolest stuff in their basements!) To be honest the only thing I really look for are movie listings. I always get a big kick seeing the old movie ads. No matter how bad a film was going to be Hollywood always tried to convince you their latest film would blow you away. My personal favorites are 60's drive-in ads. If nobody has invented the term spectacular cheeze-then I claim the term for old drive-in ads. *wink* Well I found a cool blog.... http://kcmovieads.blogspot.com/ A guy in the Kansas City area finds movie ads from old microfilms and posts them in his blog.
Hooray for laziness!
Not only that he talks about the history of the films and local KC theaters. :D
To give an example of spectacular cheeze...
Sadly, I might add that to my Netflix queue. I'm such a sucker for campy films.
Michelle's back to school. She loves her new teacher. She loves her new little buddies. She loves her new preschool building. So far so good. The main thing her teacher has been working on is teaching the kids to write.
That's right, the schools are teaching four-year old to write! Is that great or what?
Man, makes my generation feel dumb in comparison. *wink* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is something that no one else seems to get. I know politics is a dangerous thing to bring up-but doesn't Sarah Palin look like a Far Side character? I was watching CNN and something about the beehive/glasses combo made me think that she looks like a thinner version of the female characters that Gary Larson drew in the 80's. No one else sees it though.
To be honest I have days when I feel this whole election feels like something from The Far Side.
Things usually fall apart when you least expect them to. My computer somehow got riddled with a virus. ( We have a zillion different programs to take care of that. I swear!!) But I guess if you look at the astronomical amount of junk that's out roaming Windows it's going to happen sooner or later. So my internet was disabled for a while. Luckily one of my Hubby's buddies is a software programmer so he eventually fixed it for us for the cost of some homemade peanut butter cookies. :) So as far as both parties were concerned, it was a deal.
But when you lose your internet it's similar to having your car break down. You don't realize how much you use it and take it for granted until it's not there. You don't realize how dependent you are on something until it's not convenient for you to use at your disposal. Sad, but true.
Sooo it's good to be online once more! Needless to say it's going to take a bit to get caught up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This weekend my local theater had a special showing of Goldfinger. Not just my favorite Bond film, but one of my favorite movies in general. How cool is that! I have to admit, 60's movies look so much better on the big screen. When you watch them on DVD they feel scrunched together. I've seen the movie about ten million times and I noticed things for the first time while watching it on the big screen. (Goldfinger has a golden gun during the Fort Knox scene for example.) I have to admit sometimes I prefer the more natural feeling older films have. You know stunt men and sets instead of CGI and green screen. But all movie making techniques have their pros and cons. In the end it's the story that counts.
I've been very blessed this month. I've found a new job that so far looks promising. I'm working less hours, but making more at this job than my last one so it evens out. It's two blocks away. So it's within walking distance, even though it's about a 35 minute hike. The people are great and even though I'm only working part time I still get benefits. So if I've been away from LJ for a few weeks, it's because of training and orientation. But anyhoo, hip hip hooray for me! It's nice to have that positive feeling that things are going to work out. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michelle's spending the week at my Mom's and I'm amazed how QUIET our home is. No loud toys, no Jonas Brothers playing, no cartoons, no singing. It's almost creepy the silence. But it gives me the chance to get caught up on movies and cleaning. (Though cleaning is a never ending task. I'm starting to think the concept of the Mom with a clean house is a cultural myth.)It almost feels like empty nest syndrome, even though it's only temporary. But our dog has enjoyed being the baby again! :)
I do wonder about how women with large families pull it off. I'm amazed how much effort it takes being a mother in today's world with one kid. I don't know how women with four, five or six kids pull it off. I know before we got married Hubby and I talked about having lots of children. Maybe one or two of our own, then adopt or take in some foster kids. Plus lots of dogs we've adopted from the local shelter on top of that. But once the reality sets in that's a bubble that gets burst pretty fast. But it could just be me. But I think every engaged couple talks about having 14 kids and huge house in their fantasy future. Oh well. *shrugs*
PS Something that has nothing to do with parenting-how cool is it that Dark Knight broke records this weekend? Whoo hoo!
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