Michael: [Long ramble about Giant Eagle and gift cards and the gasoline discount.] But you don’t really care.
Michelle: I care deeply. Just not about whatever the hell it is you’re going on about.

Yeah. I need more chocolate in my diet.

I have to admit that I secretly take great enjoyment from the subjects of some spam messages.

I mean, how can you not wonder what “Girlfriend Plagarism” is?

Been talking about “The Wild Wild West” recently. Last night at dinner with Gina and Erin, and today with Kim.

Gina was saying last night that she wanted to borrow by DVDs when we were done, because she and her husband were debating how old Robert Conrad was during “The Wild Wild West”. Gina thought he was much older–because she watched the show as a child. (She’s wrong, he wasn’t very old at all. See here; be sure to click on the Robert Conrad link.)

Now, in case you haven’t seen it, the first season is in black and white. The remaining three seasons were in color. Today as I was talking about this with Kim, I realized that I think I only ever saw the show in black and white–my parents didn’t get a color TV until 1980, and I don’t remember if I saw the show after we got our new TV.

This is also why, as a child, I wondered why Mister Rogers had a closet full of gray sweaters.

And here you go Gina, is this old?
(more…)

Saturday evening we left the hospital for awhile so my grandmother could eat in peace, and we could find dinner. Driving around, things went pretty much like this:

Michelle: Where are we going?
Brian: There’s a red light ahead.
Michelle: Look out for that car over there!
Brian: Isn’t the way back to Grandmom’s in the opposite direction?
Michelle: Where are we going? I’m hungry! That car up there is stopped!
Brian: The light changed.
Michelle: Green light means GO!
Dad: What did I do to deserve all this abuse?
Michelle: You got into a car with both your kids?

Just got back from Baltimore. My grandmother is still in this hospital, but will hopefully be discharged tomorrow. She has ulcerative colitis (the name is on a piece of paper in one of the bags I brought home, so I won’t guarantee I have it correct.) Short of it is that her colon is inflamed.

We were all highly amused by the following conversation.

Grandmom: They’re giving me some medicine for the colon.
Dad: Do you remember what it is?
Grandmom: It starts with an “A” I think it’s something like “a-s-s-o”
Everyone: You think your colon medication is called “asso”?!

Mind you, my family is such that we kept closing the door to her room, so we wouldn’t disturb the other patients with our noise and laughing.

Ah, West Virginia has the BEST criminals.

A West Virginia man claiming he was Osama Bin Laden led police on a high-speed chase before he ultimately crashed into other vehicles, police said.

The terrorist act of choice for Tena Bergeno, 26, of Charleston, W.Va., was threatening by drink blender

You just have to love the phrase, “allegedly brandished a blender.”

(via S)

Here’s a five minute slice of my evening.

I’m sitting trying to relax, when the land line rings. It’s my brother, looking for updates on my grandmother. While I’m talking to him, my cell phone rings. I manage to wrest it out of my pocket and toss it to Michael. It’s my aunt calling from the hospital to give us the updates on my grandmother. Then Michael’s cell phone rings. I find it and pitch it to Michael. It’s his mother. Michael gives me back me my cell phone (my aunt) and I hang up the land line (my brother). Almost immediately, the phone in my grandmother’s room rings, and as my grandmother is out of the room (ahem), my aunt has to answer it. It’s my brother.

I’m doing the Wellness Programs “Pedometer Challenge.”

We’re supposed to keep track of how many steps we take per day, and everyone who completes the challenge gets put in a drawing for a gift certificate.

The goal is to get between 5000 and 10,000 steps a day, which sounds like a lot, but really isn’t.

I can tell that today has been rough, but the fact that I already have 10,649 steps and it’s not even noon.

I really do hate talking on the phone. So that must be why I’ve been on one phone or another since we got home from work.

But we were talking about (and to) my grandmother, so it wasn’t bad. Especially since she’s feeling better today.

What I don’t understand, however, is how I call my parents to give them the latest updates on my grandmother, and end up trying to explain to my father how to check the voice mail on his cell phone.

Of all the technical support I’ve provided, I have to say that qualifies as an all time low. Of course, I did get to imagine my father with a phone to each ear, listening to the voice mail prompts and me at the same time.

“What should I choose?”
“What are your choices?”
“Call voice mail.”
“Choose that one.”

And people wonder why I hate to talk on the phone.

Came home with the intention of reading and relaxing.

We had a total failure on that front, as we came home to a message that my grandmother was being put in the hospital.

Now I have to admit that in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse. Most likely she has some sort of food poisoning that she can’t kick. (We won’t discuss the fact that it took her a week to tell anyone about this. No, we won’t.) So she actually feels pretty good, but she’s lost significant weight, and she’s dehydrated.

But hopefully they’ll be able to give her something to knock out whatever bugs are attacking, so she can get back home, because the hospital simply isn’t restful.

And speaking of restful, this seems like a good time to watch another episode of “The Wild Wild West”, so I’m off.

It’s the first day of classes!

Gridlock everywhere! Woo! Woo!

Which reminds me…

Last Thursday we went to Target because I foolishly thought we’d get one last shopping excursion before things got busy.

Silly me.

It pretty much looked like locusts had descended upon the store.

The highlight was going by two women speaking EXTREMELY LOUDLY. They were pretty much YELLING EVERYTHING THEY SAID, so I could hear most of their conversation–despite the fact that we were moving to another part of the story as quickly as possible. Most of it was along the lines of:

First Woman: “I REALLY MISS NEW JERSEY!”
Second Woman: “ME TOO! IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL THERE!”
First Woman: “I JUST CAN’T GET COMFORTABLE HERE!”

And so on and so forth.

I resisted the urge to walk over and say, “If you miss it so much, then why don’t you go back, because I swear y’all from New Jersey can’t drive for shit.”

Please note, I don’t generally mind the people from New Jersey (with the exception of loud and obnoxious women dissing my home). I mind the fact that cars from New Jersey contain the rudest and most obnoxious drivers in town.

Just a note, S has expanded into food pr0n on her weblog! Check it out!

Unlike last summer, there have been very few movies this summer that I’ve been interested in seeing. (With the notable exceptions of X-Men 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean, both of which I found… okay.)

So how come when there is finally a movie I want to see, it’s not showing in Morgantown?

We still haven’t decided about “A Scanner Darkly” but that is already at the Warner, which is not the best place to watch a movie.

I’m still undecided about “Invincible”. Not only am I not sure I can sit through two(?) hours of seventies hair and clothing (shudder) but I’d have to find someone to go with, because I really can’t see Michael being at all interested in a football movie.

And we’ll just have to see if “Fearless” is an option. I’d think it would be, but then I thought the same about “The Illusionist”.

ADDENDUM the First:
Let me clarify a bit why I’m frustrated. We now have three theaters. One small, old, three screen theater, and two mega-plexes, each with 12 screens (at least I think it’s 12).

BOTH of the mega-plexes are showing:
“Accepted”
“Barnyard”
“Material Girls”
“Pulse”
“Snakes on a Plane” (two screens in each theater)
“Step Up”
“Talladega Nights” (two screens in one theater)
“The Descent”
“World Trade Center”
“Zoom”

So there is complete overlap on ten screens (eleven if you count Snakes on a Place twice)

No one is showing “Little Miss Sunshine”, “Factotum”, or “The Illusionist”–all three of which are positively rated on Rotten Tomatoes, while “Step Up”, “Barnyard”, “Material Girls”, and “Pulse” all are rated under 25%.

And that’s why I’m bitter.

I want this.

I’ve already tried to beat Michael with the clue stick. We’ll see if it takes.