Who do I call

about having Pterodactyls removed from the yard?

Playland!

Here are some night pictures from a local amusement park...

FYI

Thanks to MSNBC there's now a "Facebook Survival Guide for Awkward Adults".

Fireworks!

Tonight we watched Fireworks thanks to the Spirit of Princeton organization. The fireworks display started just after 9:15pm and could be viewed from the playing fields right next to the Princeton University Football stadium.



We got there early and the Husband picked out a great spot for us on the lawn. I had packed a picnic dinner and the weather was beautiful! Our picnic included tuna salad in pita pockets (but not just any tuna-- a combination of albacore and italian tuna with red onion, capers, lemon and pepper), home made mini blueberry muffins, deviled eggs, pesto pasta salad, macaroni salad, two kinds of chips, salad with dried cranberries and balsamic vinagrette, fresh fruit and cheese and a baguette thrown in for good measure. We also had cookies for dessert.




This is Miss B.'s reaction after the first of the fireworks...
























They put on a great show!

Happy 2nd of July!

Tropic Thunder...

Oh My God. I Am moving to catering after this!

Grounds for Sculpture

Today we visited the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton.

On the way there one passes a giant molar on the side of the road. Not sure why.





Miss B. really got a kick out of the prayer bell!
















A play on a French impressionist favorite...


































Interesting shapes and whatnot...











































This was pretty neat...














A rare glimpse at the author...














There were quite a few of these folks wandering the grounds while we were there...


















As we all know, Miss B. loves sculpture!

Deviled Eggs

a new way.


A good, but sad, read.

Counter advice to Master Oogway's contention that there are no accidents, or perhaps, coincidences.

Finally, Frugal Paris.

So sometimes we love the Times.

IKEA

Thirtysomething Mommy just had a post about Ikea and it reminded me of living in Paris in the summer of '98 with the Mom, on the eponymous Rue de la Clef.

We had been to Ikea before-- namely the one off exit 13A of the turnpike in Elizabeth. Nothing says touching down at Newark Liberty Airport quite like seeing the giant "13A/IKEA" sign across the runway.

Then, when we were making the drive one day from Paris out to what was then "Eurodisney" and is now "Disneyland Paris" we passed by an IKEA and of course had to stop. It turns out there are now seven IKEAs on the outskirts of Paris, making Paris the city with the most IKEAs anywhere. This might explain why everytime we watch "House Hunters International" it seems that most people in Paris have Ikea furniture.

Out of this trip I ended up buying (i) a gi-normous duvet cover (white, with giant yellow polka dots) which for some reason ended up being far larger than any king size duvet would ever be in the states, (ii) lamps (yes, lamps... which had Euro plugs, which I was convinced the Dad could swap out for american plugs) and the Mom bought a lazy susan and carried it across the Atlantic (despite the fact that the IKEA stores here carry the same thing). (Much like when I insisted on bringing back Nutella from Germany, only realizing later that it was sold at Publix.)

But, not to be out done, at the end of our stay in Paris we took a mini-vacation to Germany. While driving on the Autobahn near Stuttgart we came up over a hill and there, in the distance, called out to us (in the same voice as in The Simpson's theme) was a giant sign that said "IKEA!" And yes, we had to stop there too. I can't remember now what we bought at that IKEA but I'm sure it was something that wasn't necessarily unique to that store and probably something that we could have gotten for the same price in Elizabeth.

I can't quite explain what the draw to IKEA is other than that it is somewhat foreign, yet oddly familiar at the same time. Each store has the same maze-like quaility, goofy product names and questionable swedish meatballs, but still there's just something that draws you in.

And, as an FYI: Check this out... Wikipedia has a whole section on the secret behind Ikea's product naming convention... yes, there is a rhyme and reason to the whole "Ektorp" phenomenon. Who knew!?!

Fries!

Or more like: "FW-EYES!!"

Which was being shouted from the backseat at the disembodied voice coming from the drive thru speaker as I attempted to place our order.

Roadshow!

Apparently, the Antiques Roadshow found its first million dollar item. Sure, had we been able to get tickets for their Atlantic City visit like
Miss Laura I'm sure our Pulp Fiction Kangaroo could have easily beat out some "old" carved jade any day!

Stitch Witchery

Brain cloud alert! So I'm finishing off a dress for Miss B. and I wanted to attach a ribbon trim. I knew I couldn't machine sew it and I hate hand sewing so I decided to try some technology... enter: Stitch Witchery fuseable bonding "for hems, trims and belts!" Presto! Now I have had limited experience with this stuff before and thought that it should kind of look like super-thin fiberglass, or kind of like if you took polyfil and made scotch tape out of it. I just happened to have a roll in my sewing box so I took it out of the package and unrolled some. It came off the roll and looked like plastic wrap.

I was confused. I thought maybe that was just the outer wrapping. I kept unwrapping. More and more plastic wrap. So then I figured, "well, this must be it, maybe it's not the same stuff that I thought."

I then cut a few of the plastic wrap strips and put them between the ribbon and the dress fabric and attempt to melt them together with my iron.

It kind of sticks. Kind of. And my first thought is:

"this is some cheap-ass fusible bonding!"

Yeah, check that package again brainiac.

It was plastic wrap. For some reason there was like five feet of plastic wrap before you actually got to the aforementioned fiberglassy/polyfill tape material.

Needless to say, that stuff actually worked.

Note to self: Let's not do late-night sewing so much, huh?

Mail Call

In today's mail I received a postcard from "Media Paradise-- DVD Rental"

Media Paradise is located beside the Apna Bazaar and Millennium salon in the Liberty Mall Plaza.

It features the latest Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali movies!

Bollywood here we come!

Real-time Goofballs

We've got a pick-up truck in front of us in line at McDonald's with a "Boycott France" bumper sticker. Oh, how enlightened!

In other developments, Miss B. just said "Bee-sicka-milk!"

We still have no idea what "bee-sicka-beez" means but she has been using it lately as a modifier, for example, "bee-sicka-mama", "bee-sicka-dada" and now: "bee-sicka-milk!"

WHY?!?

on earth are the tree cutting people in front of our house again? They were just here like 3 weeks ago. Trees don't grow that fast! All this is accomplishing is keeping Miss B. from nap time! But, the presence of the giant cherry-picker truck did elicit a "Crazy!" from Miss B.

Etiquette

One of the Gymboree moms recently met another mom who suggested starting a knitting/crochet circle play group. This with the hope of blending play dates for the kids with knitting time for the moms. Sounds like a good enough idea, right?

An email was circulated to the group and Crazy Mom was one of the first to weigh in:

"Farm camp is over! Kindergarten is over! Dance class and swim class and t-ball are over! This coming week is flexible. Thing 1's first camp is 8:30-11:30 week after next, so 9-11 I'm cool."

9-11? First of all, I love to knit but there is no way in hell I'm waking up early enough to get myself and Miss B. anywhere to knit at 9am.

Secondly, what the *)^&? is "Farm Camp"?

Okay, fine. The first meeting coincided with our visit to Mel's house so we had to politely decline. Prior to this first meeting one of the other Gymboree mom's had suggested that maybe the next meeting could be at her house or at my house so the collective group wouldn't have to drive all the way to Pennsylvania (where the first meeting was to take place... so get this, I would theoretically be getting up early enough not only to knit at 9am, but knit at 9am IN PENNSYLVANIA. Yeah, so *not* happening, but I digress).

This suggestion was thrown out while we were at the park. In all honesty I was only really half-listening. It took me a moment or so to realize that she had said that we could have the meeting at *MY* house. Okay, let me process this-- you've just offered up my house?

Fine. So she keeps talking and I say, "okay, whatever, we'll see-- I'm fine with coming to your house or going to Yardley" I really didn't say too much about it because I'm thinking to myself that I'm not going to be able to go to the first meeting so I'm not even going to have met any of the people who are in the group who we don't already know... she can't honestly expect me to host this thing, right?

WRONG!

The day after the knitting group I get a message on Facebook telling me that everybody will be coming over to my house Thursday at 10am! Not only that but Crazy Mom and her kids will be there (at which point I flash back to Thing 2 climbing on my furniture attempting to molest my deer head) and the lady who hosted last time (who I've never met) will not only be bringing her child but will be bringing a friend and their child! All told there will be approximately 5 adults (in addition to myself) and 6 children (in addition to Miss B!)

Let's start lining up the food now. I don't think I could possibly buy enough juice boxes and baloney for this crowd. Yowzers.

I'm one of those people who likes the idea of social gatherings but is inherently anti-social. It's why I forced myself to participate in the Cornell Ambassadors throughout college-- so that I would be required to talk to people. It's why I only will order pizza over the internet (that way I don't have to talk to the Domino's man on the phone). I love the concept of social interaction but when it comes right down to it I don't like people I don't know. Yes, I've said it before, couple all of this with my germaphobe ways and I am very Howard Hughes-esque. Without the fortune, unfortunately.

Moral of the story is, this whole thing is so not happening! I'd love to host an outdoor thing by the pool or whatnot (where the kids could be OUTside of the house, thus messy food and drink would not be of a concern and my taxidermy would remain unharmed).

And, I really don't have an issue with being part of the rotating hosting duties but I'd at least like to meet everybody first!

Geesh!

Miss B. Models Her New Duds.

Give that girl a hand!





















Check out that bow!

We love Calder!

Real-Time Fekkai Blogging

So here I am waiting at Fekkai for Misin. I just had my signature Klingon eyebrows tweezed back into something more befitting a homosapien and am now awaiting delivery of a soda. I had been hoping for champagne, but I'll take soda. Okay, for starters who knew that eyebrow plucking could actually be relaxing? Its kind of like reverse accupuncture. Now that my brain is all loosey-goosey I'm ready for shampooing!

I just finished speaking with Misin, after the required Euro-double air kiss.

Okay, now I'm back from being shampooed by Marie Antoinette. Yes, Marie Antoinette. Let them eat cake!

Only at a french hair salon.

To the Person Who Drives a Foreign Motorcycle Up and Down our Street at 2:30am going Approximately 70 MPH

Do you really have to do that? And, could you get louder mufflers? Not to mention, where is it exactly that you're going since after you drive down my street I can still hear your whiny Yamaha/Honda/Mitsubishi Motorcycle Engine revving a few streets away? Did you notice you're in a 40 mph zone? Trust me, no one is going to hire you to be in the next Fast and Furious movie so why not just take it down a notch. Thanks.

Did I invent Hip-Hop?

No.

But I was there.

What a Wonderful Surprise!!!

Today when Miss B. and I got home after early evening errands we opened the mailbox and found a *wonderful* surprise!! Packed inside was a box full of amazing goodies hand made by Ellen at Nouveau Stitch! You've got to check out Ellen's blog, especially if you enjoy sewing! She is a fabulously talented lady and you will be completely inspired!

Miss B. was very excited to open up the box, especially once she saw all of these amazing hairbows!!

Now, Miss B. has quite the head of curly locks and I have to say we have amassed quite the collection of hair accessories, but none as beautiful as these!! We can't decide which to wear first!

Each one is prettier than the next, but I have to say...

This one is my favorite!! I love the button and the printed ribbon. How neat is this?

Then, as if the hair goodies weren't fabulous enough, there was more terrificness in store for us! We unwrapped tissue paper to reveal:

This beautiful hand-made sundress! As if it wasn't lovely enough of Ellen to make this gorgeous dress for Miss B., in an amazing coincidence the fabric is fabric that I had seen at the Pennington Quilt Works!! I loved the "air mail" pattern that is shown on the skirt of the dress and had thought about making Miss B.'s baby quilt with it but couldn't find the coordinating patterns.

(this is the back)

Miss B. was very excited when she saw her new dress-- and just kept saying "Dress! Dress!" So here is a big shout-out of THANK YOU! From both of us to Ellen!! We had planned a special family day in the city for Saturday and Miss B. will be proudly wearing her beautiful new dress-- pictures will follow!!

(this is the front!)

Here's a close-up of the "air mail" fabric-- isn't it just too adorable? I love the bird sillhouettes!

This collar detail is amazing-- and the little green buttons!!

Check out the adorable bow at the back of the dress!

Thank you, again, Ellen-- you made our day (actually, you made our entire week!!!)

ps. the dress is the *perfect* size, how did you know? :)