Monday, January 30th, is the sixth annual Draw a Dinosaur Day. This is the first year I've heard of it, so technically I should draw six dinos to catch up, but I'm pretty sure nobody wants to see that many badly drawn pictures. So here's my single entry, which I OF COURSE submitted to the website (I'll let you know when I hear that it was soundly rejected):
You're welcome!
(P.S. That weird little tail part isn't supposed to be there. SHH!!!)
UPDATE!: They posted it! Although, sadly, they only posted my first version which accidentally didn't include the caption. ANYWAY, mine is here on page two, or go directly to it here. SUBMIT YOUR OWN!
I'm sure it means there's something wrong with me, but man, I think photobombs are hilarious. And animal photobombs are even better! And so I give you this:
Well, my attempt to live blog the concert did not go as planned. At all. My phone got all paperweighty on me and refused to send emails, visit my blog site, etc. What it did do was allow me to text myself, so that's how I took notes at the show. I also took pictures and video, and we'll see how well that turned out later.
After we got to the concert, we found the bathroom (and I blogged about it here because I always blog about peeing, basically) and then got to our seats, which were maybe 12 feet from the stage. Third row, center. Amazing. And then I got pissed off because the first row center seats were empty for the whole night. I can't imagine what tragedy causes you to miss out on your first row center seats so I hope those folks are OK. Of course, if they are OK, then I'll have to hurt them because THEY WASTED FRONT ROW CENTER SEATS! Honestly, people.
Anyway, the first opening band cracked me up because the guitarist walked on stage and immediately threw out a pick. That's pretty ballsy, considering that we really didn't know anything about them. Who wants a pick from some weird guy in tight pants who can't even throw his pick far enough to make it past the second row? You have to prove yourself before we bend all over in the dark and find your pick to take home.
The sound mix wasn't great (all night, because apparently you can either SEE a concert or HEAR a concert, but not both, depending on where you are seated), and they were hard to understand, but Electric Touch turned out to be a pretty good band. And the lead singer got really excited when a handful of us joined in on parts of Blitzkrieg Bop (AY! O! LET'S GO!). Nothing like getting singled out by the singer in a band. Yes, I am that awesome.
Next up, after a potty break (OF COURSE) was Rival Sons, who came with their own banner and bravado. My first thought was, "Is Rival Sons a popular enough band to act this quirky?" I think not, which means the lead singer in particular just kind of looked stupid. He was dressed in all black, wearing these skintight, low-waist jeans with a suit jacket covering a vest that bared his stomach at the bottom. No shirt. He also had a scarf on and lots of jewelry, and he had on these ankle high white boots with all these buckles on them. The photo here doesn't do him justice.
I kept staring at the jeans, mostly because his waist was kind of at my eye level since we were sitting down. He was a crazy skinny man, and his jeans were so tight that I could see that he had lip balm or something in one of the pockets. And that leads me to the flaw in his outfit (for him, anyway). I could see what was in his pockets, but nothing, well, in between the pockets. Which means... ahem... I kind of think he should have worn a shirt that covered up his front. Because there is a difference between leaving something to our imagination and having nothing for us to imagine.
ANYWAY. He could definitely sing and the band could definitely play!
Once he stopped his onstage seizure dancing I, of course, went pee again. Then it was show time! Amy Lee was so close that it was nuts! She invited us to all stand up and the show was off. It's always amazing to be close enough to the stage that you know the band sees you. Husband and I both made eye contact with Amy and got smiles back. That's just cool.
I know that on previous tours there was criticism about Amy's voice not being on-key. I can tell you for sure that there was nothing to criticize here. That woman was note-for-note perfect, even singing the opera-like vocals in Weight of the World (you can hear that song below, although it's an album version with fan-made visuals). She was also friendly and adorable. Which is what I like in my Amy Lee. I noticed that she had boots on and remembered that The Girl, though only five, has caught on to the boot trend and is trying to get me to buy her a pair. I also noticed that in some lighting, black shirts are see-through, and I'm thankful that Amy, unlike some young stars, knows how to wear undergarments. It would have been a long, awkward show from that close if she didn't!
At some point before the show, Husband and I noticed a woman behind us who had chosen to wear a top that, well, was missing some important parts. I'm honestly not sure how this woman didn't flash everyone every time she moved. Later in the show, I saw that she was one of the few people sitting down. At first, I thought it was odd, but then I realized, "OH! It's because the security cards said 'No flashes!'" HA! I was so proud of that one I had to shout it to Husband right in the middle of everything. I think he was appreciative. I'm sure you all would have been, right?
It's been a long time since I've been to a concert, and one thing has really changed. Up until a few years ago, bands often requested no cameras and no recording equipment at shows. You could have lost your camera if you violated that rule. I can remember buying a disposable camera (do they still even make those?) and burying it in my purse in hopes that security wouldn't notice (they never did). Now, if you turn around at a show, you'll see hundreds of cell phones recording songs, nice cameras, and I don't even know what else. I guess once you could take photos and videos from cell phones, the artists realized they were screwed and they might as well go with it.
I tried to make a conscious effort to look at the whole band, not just Amy, whenever I could drag my eyes away from her awesomeness. At one point, I was watching her and then I thought I saw a drumstick go flying behind her. I thought, "Hey! What am I missing back there?" So then I starting watching drummer Will Hunt and he was throwing sticks straight up in the air, catching them, and continuing to drum! And that's when I realized that drummers are completely awesome. Well, at least one of them is. I also enjoyed looking at Terry Balsamo's seemingly never-ending parade of cool guitars. He had all kinds of pictures on them.
I love seeing my favorite artists in concert but don't particularly enjoy watching concert DVDs. There's something about the community experience of a concert that's just incredible. When the band closed the main set with Bring Me to Life, so many people in the audience were singing that I couldn't tell if the voice I was hearing was my own or someone else's. We were all feeling the music in our bodies and singing and it was amazing. There's nothing like it.
The show ended after a short encore, including another sing-a-long on My Immortal (prompted by Amy, who asked us all to sing after saying, "I know I can't get away with not doing this song.") When we left I looked longingly in the direction of the people waiting for set lists (and later, the people lining up to try to get autographs), but we really needed to get home.
And then, randomly, as we walked out of the concert hall and by what turned out to be a door to the backstage area, we saw James Durbin, of American Idol fame! James caught my attention during AI not only because he was an amazing metal singer but also because he has Tourette Syndrome and Asperger's*, two disorders that also plague one of my children. I loved what James did for others with these problems simply by being who he is on a show watched by millions. Anyway, I said to Husband, "HEY! I THINK THAT'S JAMES DURBIN!" Two young women had spotted him as well, which confirmed my suspicion. Well, that and the part where Husband said, "Yeah, that's him." So naturally I said, "I'm going to go say 'Hi!'" I went over and shook James's hand and told him that I was a big fan and that I voted for him tons on Idol. I'm pretty sure he said "Thank you," but we were all distracted by the fangirls being fangirly, and the fact that he was not expecting to be noticed while waiting to be let in the side door. I would have asked for a photo (like the fangirls did) but with my phone on HOLY CRAP YOU NEED TO CHARGE ME RIGHT NOW I figured it would be pointless. Plus, Husband was looking all "It's-time-to-go-home-because-I-have-to-wake-up-for-work-in-six-hours"-y. Still, it was an unexpected treat, and now I'm wondering what the hell James Durbin was doing in Tampa and what his connection is with Evanescence. Maybe he'll be opening up later for the tour? If so, they will really need to come back by here and do this all over again. Someone needs to arrange that for me.
So, that's my live blog, done somewhat not live. Rock on!
Evanescence, Weight of the World, included because I said it would be.
All photos courtesy of my shitty cell phone.
Other blog entries related to the Evanescence concert not-so-great live blog experience are here,here, here, and here. WHEW!
*Spell check doesn't recognize the word "Asperger's" but suggests that I may have meant "Supercharger's." What?
If you are frequent visitors to this blog then you know I have Interstitial Cystitis and will be spending excessive amounts of this show in the bathroom. Here is documentation of my first trip. You're welcome. (If you don't know what Interstitial Cystitis is, you should google it while I am enjoying the show.)
My phone won't work at all in this place. The best I can do is text notes to myself to write for you later. This post is courtesy of my husband's dying battery. So sorry.
Edited to add: Now I'm debating whether to bring a purse to this concert or not. Do I NEED a place to put my crap, or do I just cram these babies in my pocket and go?
Elmo and Ernie are causing a HUGE traffic jam. Why in the world would they work on the road during rush hour? Sheesh! And if you click on this picture and enlarge it, you can totally see Elmo going off about the whole thing. He's got quite the mouth on him, let me tell ya.
The Girl recently decided to take care of the dogs, and by taking care of the dogs, she apparently meant "pile this resting dog with a blanket and toys while she relaxes in the sun." Payton didn't seem to mind. She slept here for hours.
PS- Look where her back feet are. That dog is crazy flexible. That probably explains how she can leap tall counter tops in a single bound.
I was just thinking about how handy it is that I have two dogs that helped clean up the spilled soup in the kitchen, and later the spilled milk in the same kitchen, until it occurred to me that THE DOGS ARE THE ONES SPILLING ALL THE STUFF. I can't be praising them for partially cleaning up their own messes. Although I do praise the children for just that, but that's different. Maybe. Whatever.
Anyway, now I'm off to start mopping.
I SMELL SOUP!
(Sorry that I didn't take the time to photoshop out the eye boogies.)
We're having rather un-Florida-like weather at the moment. There was frost on things this morning, and tonight's low is 34 degrees. My dogs can't help but notice the change.
Oddly enough, my tiny Papillon, all seven pounds of fluff, doesn't seem to mind the cold. Of course, that's partially because he likes to remain an arm's distance away from me at all times, and I'm sure as hell not hanging around outside right now unless I have to. Still, when I send him out to go potty, he's doing his thing just like every day. He handles the cold like he handles the rain: with one big "Whatever." Papillons are tougher than they look.
Is it cold? I hadn't noticed. What are you doing right now? Do you need me to do anything for you? Let me follow you to the bathroom....
Mr. Beagle, Wrigley, is a HUGE wet weather wimp. I'm pretty sure that when he got dumped or lost or whatever it was that caused him to be roaming free without anyone looking for him, he made a beeline for the nearest shelter and said, "Please! Do you have a soft blanket to rest on somewhere that never gets wet? TAKE ME THERE!!!" He actually tolerates the cold better than I would have thought. In cold weather, it's not obvious that he'd prefer to be indoors, but it's suddenly easier to call him inside away from the dogs he chats with in the neighboring backyard.
Oh, dudes, you know I'd love to stay and chat about the weather but my mom's calling and I REALLY have to go. She probably has a biscuit!
But my 10-and-a-half-year-old Whippet, Payton, thinks this whole cold weather thing is RIDICULOUS! She goes out, pees, jumps through the torn porch screen (thanks for that, dog), and starts barking at the backdoor approximately 30 seconds after she going outside. She's half crazy when she comes back in, too. She mopes around in the rain but cold makes her spunky and loud.
Holy crap, people. It's FREEZING in my bathroom! You think it's funny, but if there was no heat in your toilet, you wouldn't be laughing. I'll get you for this. When you aren't looking, I'm going to eat your stuff. Don't think I'm kidding.*
It's M week at my daughter's preschool and since I'm swamped with work I thought I'd let her assignment of the day (to draw her mom) be today's post. She got super detailed and required me to come over to her multiple times so that she could examine my rings and earrings.
The commentary is not included on the work she will turn in tomorrow!
I can totally understand the enlarged portions so I can deal with being portrayed as Dumbo in this drawing. But I'm very concerned about my nose. Also, where are my pants? I can assure you that I was not pantsless at the time of this portrait. I was also not nearly as awake as my wide eyes might suggest. I'm actually never that awake. Too bad.
... is waiting until the dye develops and then finding all the things you've stained. Today's victims: my bathroom sink, counter, and various body parts. While rinsing I also got it on my daughter's new fairy towel, which I washed with fervor and prayers; thankfully, it came clean. Whew!
Previous victims have included my bathroom door, which now has some kind of modern art look to it.
I was in a fancy mall tonight (fancy=all stores too expensive for me to actually shop in) and, of course, I had to go to the bathroom. THIS is the hallway I had to walk down before turning the corner into a lobby area AND THEN turning into the bathroom. By the time I got back out to the mall, I had to pee again. Plus, I had this whole fight-or-flight thing going on because people get attacked/mugged/stolen in long, creepy, semi-deserted hallways, right?
Anyway, see the guy wayyyyyyy at the beginning of the hallway? (I took this picture on my way out.) That's my husband, possibly dying from boredom. Or reading ESPN.com on his phone. They are pretty much the same anyway.
I went in for my instillation today, obviously. My nurse made a little squeally noise in excitement while fetching my sample and she told me how much she enjoyed basically getting to handle cups filled with my pee. My work here is done. Until next time.
And now for some Christmas laughs, brought to you by the Muppets. Thanks to my facebook friend Jeanette, who found this gem, which my kids watched about 10 times today while laughing fiendishly.
A few days ago, my 14-year-old self was crushed to hear this on the radio:
Goodness knows, one of the only good things about that song is that it was sung by a very young George Michael. My junior high school friends and I would gladly have found the girl who broke his heart* and punched her in the neck. Twice.
And now Taylor Swift has done a remake? A world of no, people.
This is the only version of Last Christmas that matters:
I still love you, George. Just not, you know, THAT way.
Right now I'm in the midst of an email conversation with a tech person. I sign every email "Thanks, Brenna" and she starts every email response with "Hi Brenda." It's like a passive aggressive way of saying that my parents can't spell.
This week I worked feverishly to format the contents of the March issue of Clean Run Magazine. Made my deadline by about two hours. Impressive that I timed it out that well, right? Early is for chickens.
On Saturday, I packed up eight portable dog crates that are part of my crate review article (due on January 1), a box of 50 munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, and a photographer friend and took them all to a trial about 30 minutes from my house. Kelli Hayes from Pasco Paws allowed me to use some space at her trial to ask competitors to rate the crates I brought. My photographer, Linda Galgani, took about 50 gazillon pictures of dogs in the crates for potential use in Clean Run. I couldn't believe that so many people gave me a good chunk of their time. Dog people can be so nice! That article should be out in April, although sometimes things get moved.
I also can't believe that my fingers still hurt from opening/closing/assembling/disassembling crates while I was demonstrating them. I type an awful lot and never have sore fingers from that so I really was surprised that a day of crate demos would make for soreness lasting for days. That's some kind of crazy.
I now have had at least three different people tell me that they've thought of me when leaving urine samples or having other medical tests. These are people that I only know on the internet. I'm super proud to be so awesomely famous that you all think of me in your most humble moments. Or something.
On a completely non-work-related note, I got tickets to see Evanescence in concert in January. In the third row. In the exact center. I'm seven kinds of excited about this! I've loved them since the beginning but I've never gotten to see them in concert. In fact, I've not been to a concert in ages because my old favorites, Pearl Jam and Tori Amos, have forgotten the Tampa Bay area over the last few years. I'm trying not to be too bitter about that.
So here's a sample of Evanescence playing with an orchestra at the Nobel Peace Prize concert today. Picture me in the third row of this show, smiling and shouting asinine things like "We love you Amy Lee!" There's nothing weird about a 40-year-old woman doing anything like that, right?
What's better than Evanescence? EVANESCENCE WITH STRINGS:
Husband: Will you check and see if we have any Thyme? It should be in the bottom left drawer of the refrigerator.
Me: Is THAT where all our time is? I've not had anywhere near enough time to do everything I need to get done lately. I can't believe it's been right here in the refrigerator all along!
Husband: Just check and see if it's still good, OK?
At my friendly neighborhood Pet Supermarket, this spider cage sits up on a shelf so high that I had to hold my phone over my head to take a picture of it. Don't go looking for the spider. He's ALLEGEDLY under the bedding. I just thought the information on the cage was so interesting that I had to take a picture of it.
While I was snapping away, a salesman came over to see if I needed help. I told him I was fascinated by the outstanding sales pitch on the cage. He told me that the tarantula, which is only a quarter-sized baby, bit him when it poked it to see if it was still alive (idiot). The bite on the tip of his finger left bruising that extended ALL THE WAY UP TO HIS ELBOW. FOR MONTHS!
The "friendly" adult tarantula in the cage next door only cost $15 because he's not as pretty as this attack-ula apparently will be when he grows up. So basically they are waiting for the right person who doesn't mind risking life and limb owning an aggressive spider BECAUSE IT IS PRETTY.
Can you imagine if it got out of its cage in your house? You could never sleep again.
The Boy has his first project to do for school. He has to pick a country and then research what people in that country do for Christmas or a similar holiday. Then he has to compare and contrast that country's Christmas customs with those in the United States. Several countries were listed on a "don't do" list because those countries are going to be studied in class.
Last week we had a lengthy discussion (read: argument) about why he couldn't choose the U.S. even though it wasn't on the "don't do" list. He was quite determined. Over the next few days I made some suggestions, including Australia and Canada, where I know a few people and could get information via email. He finally chose China and today we started researching it. After I put him in bed tonight, I asked him this question:
Me: How did you choose China?
The Boy [with a big smile]: I chose it because it sounds like angina. Chest pain.
[We both laughed.]
Me: How do you know what angina is?
The Boy: iCarly.
Me: Ah.
I guess I should consider myself lucky that it's ANGINA that he's rhyming it with.
It was a quiet week for the online version of me. I wrote a few uncredited announcements for USDAA.com, but mostly I worked diligently on things that will appear in print or online later. The first of the month means that I always have at least one magazine article due to Clean Run (Everything You Want to Know About Agility But Were Afraid to Ask - you can see a copy from 2009 HERE), plus I need to upload and begin formatting all the articles that are submitted to Clean Run Magazine. The December 1 deadline is for articles appearing in the March issue. Isn't it amazing that magazines have to work that far ahead?
This month I also, probably stupidly, made the deadline for all material for the USDAA's quarterly newsletter to be due to the designer on the first. I want to get it out before the end of the month though, so that's what needed to be done. So I was doing excerpts from subscriber articles and writing an article of my own, plus an editor's letter, plus editing the president's letter.... I got it all in by December 2, which is just like December 1, only better. Right? Our last newsletter is HERE if you'd like to see it.
I also had three articles due to another magazine called DogSport. This month one article due was a brief one about the sport of K9 nose work, another about dock jumping, and the third about exercises for the sport of flyball. I attended a dock jumping practice a few weeks ago to help prepare for the second article. It was interesting. It looks like a fun sport if you have dogs that like to swim. I have dogs that don't go out in the rain, let alone swim, so I'm out. My Papillon is actually my most game dog. He might eventually like swimming, but I'm not sure jumping off a dock would be his cup of tea.
My formatting deadline for Clean Run is up next, so working on that and some other new administrative duties for the magazine will be absorbing me next, along with getting the week's worth of articles ready to post for subscribers on USDAA.com. Somewhere in there I need to keep working on my e-book for Clean Run, as well as do research for my article on portable crates, due to Clean Run on January 1. I'll be bringing seven crates with me to an agility trial next weekend for people to try out. The good part about that is that I'll be going to an agility trial with a photographer friend and no children. Fun! The bad part is having to haul seven crates. No normal 9-to-5 desk work for me!
One fun online experience this week was writing a haiku about hammers. It was inspired by some twitter buddies and wound up being posted in an article on this blog. Click HERE if you missed it. That article garnered one of my first pieces of comment spam. I left it on the blog because it makes me feel relevant :)
Another really cool online interaction involved Martika, a late 80s/early90s pop star who has developed a presence on twitter as @MartikaTunes. She's been working on new music and took some time out to ask her followers to follow various people. I sent her a note with a link to my blog and she immediately tweeted this out to her 13,000+ followers:
Today @lucysfootball and @lgalaviz, two twitter friends, starting sharing haiku about hammers. Why? I'm not sure. It's possible that they were trying to avoid doing something else (certainly that's not why *I* contributed). I'm not here to judge. But I can't pass up a chance to write haiku.
