Anomalous Data - Personal

Charity Golf Tournament

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:49:20 GMT

Missing Children Minnesota is having their 4th annual Charity Golf Tournament.

It is a great deal of fun, and for a great cause.

If you love golf, and believe in the mission of Missing Children Minnesota, this is the perfect event for you!

You can follow this link to a PDF of the even flier, and print out the registration form. All the information you need is on the flier.

http://www.scribd.com/full/53549656?access_key=key-1t9xbasbqkcdgs04whe8

Play, Pie, and Crazy: Part 2

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:40:02 GMT

Rocky and I had been to see a play, part of our little tradition of subscribing to the Guthrie Theater every year. This performance had managed to sneak up on me. I had it on the wrong night in my calender, and everything had turned into a sort of train-wreck that day.

Rocky drove from the airport, directly from the play. I drove there from another location. We met, attended the play, and enountered a creepy older couple who desperatly wanted me to eat one of their throat lozenges. (see Play, Pie, and Crazy, Part 1)

Rocky and I decided to go to Perkins for pie and coffee. I normally would never eat pie, and certainly not that late at night, but decided to make an exception. We were going to meet at the Perkins on the way home.

But first, I had to stop for gas. I decided to go to a familiar gas station, first, rather than risk running out of gas on the freeway.

So I got through all the button-punching preliminaries, set the nozzle in my gas tank, and began the long wait. I did what I often do. I put one leg up on the concrete plinth that the gas pump sits on and proceeded to stretch out my hamstring muscles. I was already stretched from earlier that day, so I was able to nearly touch my nose to my knee.

Then, I switched legs, and as I did so, the car on the other side of the island rolled forward. There were a couple of skin-head-looking types glaring at me from the car. The window nearest me was rolled down slightly.

The guy in the passenger side glared at me and said "Bitch". They drove off.

Weird. Shrug.

Rocky got to the Prekins ahead of me, and was sitting at the table playing with his new laptop. It is a very special laptop from a very special source. Not everyone can get them, yet.

As he explained this to me, I thought about pointing out to him how unfair it was that he got to keep his special laptop that not many other people could get, which he got from a very special source...when I had to throw away a lozenge with similar credentials just minutes before.

But I was distracted by the conversation going on behind my back.

There was a young man explaining to another young man how current political powers were massing to bring about Armageddon.

"There are agents of the Beast who are right now working to make everyone in the world equal so that they can bring our country down to the level of other countries and bring about Armagheddon. Do you have any idea who that might be?"

I assume the other young man wrote some names down on a napkin or something, because I really didn't hear a reply, but the other young man seemed delighted with some sort of answer.

I couldn't help but overhear the conversation as the guy went through the _Left Behind_ series, and every single hair-brained conspiracy theory that I have ever even hear rumor of. It was masterful.

Rocky and I had a tremendous conversation about his trip, and some of the stuff he did and the people he talked to, and we talked about the play a little, and I told him about what had happened while he was gone...

Punctuated by dark intimations of the Jewish Monitary Conspiracy that was the Federal Reserve, and the heroics of certain politicians who were determined to preserve as much of the rightous church as possible for the final battle, and the implications of the gay agenda, and the importance os good spiritual hygiene and preperation for spiritual warfare in the conflict to come. They sounded really jazzed at the idea of rives of blood, death, and destruction. The identity of the horsement were discussed. The identity of the Beast was dicussed.

They covered everything.

Rocky and I would occasionally pause in our conversation just to gather our thoughts whenever a particularly noxious bit of craziness wafted over us.

What a weird night.

Play, Pie, and Crazy: Part 1

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:57:23 GMT

Rocky and I recently went to see "Faith Healer" at the Guthrie. It was pretty good. Not enjoyable, exactly. It was actually sort of bleakly challenging as a play. We were both really impressed by the ability of each of the three actors to dominate the stage. The story is told three times, not unlike the Akira Kurisowa film, Roshamon (sp?)...where different characters tell a story each from their own perspective. Anyway, what makes it difficult to watch is that the story is told as a series of four monologues.

Can you imagine being an actor who has to carry a 1/2 hour monologue all by him or herself? The actors did a very good job.

Anyway, I unfortunately had a coughing fit in the middle of the second monologue. Even though I had a cough lozenge in my mouth at the time. Those of you who have been to the Guthrie theater know that some attendees have an addiction to something called "fragrance layering" Basically, they bath in perfumed soap, put on perfumed lotion, spray themselves down with a perfumed body spray, and then dab a little perfume on their "pulse points". In short, they spend a lot of money to smell like Victorian era French prostitutes.

Often, if there is such a person near us, or if the residue of such a person is still on my seat, I will have a terrible time with coughing, sneezing, eye-watering, etc. This was such a night.

It was terrible, because I was trying desperately to not cough for a long time, and finally, I just couldn't help it.

A lady in front of us handed me a lozenge. Mortifying.

I had my own, but I took it rather than explain why I wasn't taking it. The coughing fit subsided, and I put it in my pocket.

When intermission came, she asked me how I liked the lozenge. I admitted that I had not yet tried it, but thanked her. She insisted that I must try it, that it was a very special lozenge, and that I would absolutely love it.

She was a nice-looking, conservatively dressed lady about the same age and style as my mother-in-law.
Prim, flesh-colored lipstick, sensible sweater of Nordic extraction over a turtleneck. A delicate gold chain with a scattering of little round shiny glass beads. Helmet hair.

Rocky mumbled something about getting me some coffee, and squeezed my shoulder to let me know that he was leaving, and I should try to catch him up when I was done with my conversation.

The lady went on about how great these lozenges were. I couldn't see a brand name on the one she gave me. It was bright yellow, round, and had an indistinguishable green image on the clear cellophane.

Her husband joined, in, singing the praises of the lozenge. They went on and on.

I excused myself as gracefully as possible, and fled. In line for coffee, I tried to explain the deeply creepy nature of the encounter to Rocky. He looked at me bemusedly, as if he were blowing off my perceptions as not quite credible.

We drank our coffee, and returned for the second half of the play. After the final bow, the older couple turned around and looked at me expectantly. "Thank you for the lozenge", I said, self-conscious of the fact that it was still in my pocket, and they obviously wanted to hear how much I liked it.

"Oh, you're welcome. These are VERY SPECIAL lozenges." (heads bobbing up and down in a way that was at the same time enthusiastic and prompting)

"Where did you get them?"

"We have a special source, you can't get them just anywhere. But they're really good." (bobblehead action continues)

"So, what are they?"

Hesitation; "We just love them. Don't you think it's wonderful?"

"Uh, yeah, so , uh, thank you very much...we have to get going, but thanks again."

I turned to Rocky as we exited the theater,

"See what I mean?"
"You threw it away, right?"
"I don't know, they sound pretty good..."
"Please throw it away."
"Roger that", I threw it away.

Good Morning!

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:55:11 GMT

Rocky: I'm not going to get everything done that I wanted to before my conference call, but like you said; I should have got up earlier.

Me: I don't believe I "said" that. I believe that I snarkily implied it through an oblique but very arch comment.

Rocky: If you want to be technical, I suppose you're right.

Me: Well, we must be precise.

BTW, thanks, Karen for grabbing all of my flair from Facebook so I can use it in my blog!

How my 11-year-old sees me

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:06:49 GMT

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Have you practiced your cello?

2. What makes mom happy?
chocolate and her giant stuffed penguin doll.

3. What makes mom sad?
She's only happy or annoyed really, she doesn't get sad.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
When she talks to Tim's friends in the ancient teenaged language from when she was a kid.

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Insubordinate. I can just tell that she was.

6. How old is your mom?
42 (close, I'm 41)

7. How tall is your mom?
5'3" (close, I'm 5' 6.5")

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
go on the computer and Google stuff!

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Clean and google stuff.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
She'd be a famous Kung Fu master, or writing something.

11. What is your mom really good at?
Writing and googling and Kung fu.

12. What is your mom not very good at?
She is not good at video games.

13. What does your mom do for her job?
writeing and Kung Fu teeaching.

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
salad?

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
A lot of things. Mostly Kung Fu.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Marvin the Martian.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
We go to the coffee to the coffee shop on wednesdays and play cards or chess or board games.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
We both like coffee. we both eat a lot of salad, We both do Kung Fu. We both Google and read a lot and we both play cello.

19. How are you and your mom different?
I'm good at video games and she isn't. She types fast and I don't. We have different eye colors. She reads faster than me.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Because she buys me hot chocolate and she lets me do things I really want to do like cello and Kung fu and things like that.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
The Guthrie Theater.

Kids say the darndest things.

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:43:08 GMT

Today, Marcus (the 12-year-old formerly known as Grasshopper) and I were discussing a local Charter School. He would like to attend it, because he wants to learn Greek and Latin, and it is a Classics school. I have to check into it to see if they offer Latin and Greek.

Anyway, I said that he could try to get into it, but pointed out that they have a uniform requirement, and that the school is very ridgidly administered. He would have to learn to fit a very narrow mold.

He thought he could do that. Then, I pointed out that the more free-wheeling style of the mainstream public schools in the district forces kids to take more personal responsibility, and that there is something to be said for learning to cope with chaos. Tim (the 15-year-old) has become remarkably organized, and adept at dealing with problems on his own, and pursueing solutions to his difficulties on his own, for instance.

Marcus replied "Mom, I think that academics are more important right now. I'm sure that I will encounter chaos when I am older, and I can learn to deal with it then."

My jaw dropped. It just seemed like a funny thing for a 12-year-old to say.

Crazy Random Happenstances

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:27:46 GMT

I have a news feed to the headlines of my hometown paper. I just got three news alerts at once, and two of them struck me as collectivly funny.

Bemidji man injured in collision with horse

Woman charged with ramming her boyfriend's car 20 times

Naturally, the stories are not actually funny...just the headlines struck me so as I scanned them.

Frame of referance.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:50:23 GMT

I was just at the gym working out. I was on the elliptical, and a young woman from India started working out next to me.

On the wall facing us, a bank of TV's play various things. I find that I have an unusual ability to follow the close-captioning of more than one television at a time. Not perfectly by any means, but pretty well.

I was listening to my music and watching CNN as Israel pounded on Gaza. Not without provocation, but still a lamentable situation. CNN was just covering the situation, some hospital scenes, giving a lot of air-time to official statements from the Israeli government. Fox was showing old footage of terrorists training, and an interview with a guy who was saying that as long as there are Muslims alive in Gaza, there will never be peace for Israel.

I was deep into reading the close-captioning, when I heard the woman next to me laugh. A hearty belly-laugh. I glanced at her in shock, and followed her gaze to the TV in front of me...

...and saw that she was watching Sleepless in Seattle. They were at the part where the boy asks his dad if he is going to have sex with whatever woman he ends up marrying, and if so, is she going to scratch his back up.

I think she saw my look of horror, however, and was more subdued. She no doubt now thinks that I am some sort of weird prude who disapproves of her laughing at a very funny scene.

But I'm OK with that...I'm just glad I figured out that she was not someone who laughed at blood-shed, carnage, and wholesale political defamation of entire peoples. That would be an awkward sort of thing to think about someone.

PalMD has a nice plea for peace in our neighborhoods in America while this goes on. It's so true. I know there are some people with conflicting loyalties to their birth countries, and their adopted country...people from both sides. But you are not in your birth countries. You are here, and these people are your countrymen and your neighbors, even if their birth country is now the enemy of your birth country. If you can turn on them in violence, you missed the point of America.

Obligatory "loot"post.

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:12:14 GMT

Just got back from my folks’ place. It was a nice, relaxing time. There have been some changes that had really helped diffuse the tension that I feel whenever I return there. Everyone seems a lot calmer, more relaxed. It’s nice.

My parents spent a lot of money on snowshoes for us. Two pair. One about the right size for Rocky and Tim, and one pair the right size for me and Grasshopper. They are really cool. Excellent exercise as well. We will definitely appreciate and use them a lot.

My brother’s wife, Netti, made a big basketful of home-made jams and jellies. Huge. Many , many hours of work hand-picking the fruit, braving timberwolf cubs, bear, and biting insects, cooking, and processing. They are really beautiful, and I hate to even open them. She is one of those people who just seems to have an endless store of ability and accomplishment. And she appreciates wry dry, oblique humor and doesn’t get all bent out of shape about my jokes. In fact, she seems more amused the more obnoxious they are. And she has asked to borrow some of my books.

My cousin, Ben made a hand-crafted cribbage board for our family. It is really beautiful, and I know we will spend hours playing it…once we re-learn the rules. There are a lot of gifted craftspersons in our family. My cousins Jon and Ben are among them. In some families, you get a groan, or a roll of the eyes at the mention of hand-made gifts. Not so in our family, where if someone says they made something for you, you KNOW it’s going to be special.

I am looking at a gift from my aunt right now. Home-made cloth coasters with really bright, arty pictures of coffee cups on them. They even come in a little cloth box. Ingenious, beautiful, durable, and like nothing else anyone I know has. ‘course, she is a professional tailor and dressmaker/designer. If there were a show like iron chef, but for clothing designers, she would win.

My sister gave us some home-made sauerkraut, and a beautiful squash that she grew in her garden. It is a new variety that is so sweet, it tastes like pie without any need to add butter or sugar. It’s just as good as its weight in gold to me.

I got Perfect Push-ups from Grasshopper. On the theory that they will save on my bad shoulder. Rocky got me a shiatsu massage machine that actually works. No small feat! It is great!. Tim got me a DVD of MuLan. Tim also got me a HUGE box of chocolate truffles. Like, FOUR POUNDS of fine chocolate. It is amazing. It melts if you give it a warm, lingering glance. Which I do. Frequently.

One of the families that have been our houseguests this season brought us some fancy hard cider. It looks really nice.

As soon as I get some time, I’ll tell you about the activities. I have some southerners who occasionally come here (HI ER!) So I thought I would give you a little look into the world of ice fishing. I realize that some people have watched Grumpy Old Men, and Fargo, and think they know all about it, but you might be surprised by something. For one thing, when we lived in Alabama, my assertion that we drove heavy, four-wheel-drive trucks out onto the ice to fish was greeted with a hearty “shut your mouth!” I have proof. That’s all I’m saying.

Great Gift Idea

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:10:41 GMT

My friend Paula gave me a fantastic gift. It was a "give card" from Network for Good. She gave me a specific amount of money, and then I got to choose which charity I wanted to give it to. I chose one that helps families of children with cancer. The charity helps these families with bills up to $500.00 per month. The charity is "Angels Among Us"

It seemed like a great thing. I specifically chose a new charity because we already give to our "favorite" ones...and I have always thought that it would be good to give to one of these charities that helps families with bills...but I didn't want to cut into any of my other charities that I give to.

It was kind of neat. It felt really good to be able to do something I've always sort of wanted to do.

Thanks Paula! Great idea.

People talk, they listen, they think...and they learn...

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:38:37 GMT

It's a good thing.

Rocky was telling me a story about a conversation he was in the other day.

A guy was talking about how we are in this financial mess because banks were forced by federal regulation to give out tons and tons of loans to people who didn't deserve it.

Rocky made many points counter to this, but I think the best one was pointing out that when businesses are "forced" to do something, they do it grudgingly. They minimize it, and do as little of it as possible.

And in reality, we have spent the last several years enduring ad after ad after ad on TV, in newspapers, on the internet, BEGGING people with bad credit to take out loans with this company or that. People with bad credit were heavily lobbied to re-finance loans, and roll their other bad debt into their new loans on their houses.

I know some of these people. Some of them owe us money that will never be returned, as the houses are gone and they still have massive debt to people with more power than we have, and more ruthlessness when it comes to getting it back.

I occasionally would complain about how these predatory lenders were sleazy scum-bags who should be against the law.

Naturally, I was sometimes denounced as a commie being against innocent capitalists just wanting to make an honest buck.

Anyway, Rocky had a pleasant, passing conversation with this guy, and seemed to have at least made some impression on him.

But later, in another conversation involving some of the same people, a new player came into the mix. A guy who had worked for one of these companies.

"Well, you can blame me at least a little bit for this whole mess. I used to work for one of these companies, and they told us to write to the government and tell them that they needed to deregulate us so we could do these loans." (Obviously, this is an approximation of what I remember Rocky saying he remembered the guy saying...not a real quote.)

The first guy got a stunned look on his face, like the rug had been pulled out from under him.

And, as much fun as it might be to smugly leave it there with a sense of superiority...

...none of us have all the answers all of the time. Sometimes we need a reality check. The best people recognize them when they see them and learn from them. I got the feeling that Rocky thought this guy was that sort of people.

Baby Steps.

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:05:35 GMT

I finally finished helping Grasshopper organize/clean his room. It took a little more than one day. I moved everything out of his room, vacuumed, dusted, and then he helped me move stuff back in...just the stuff that had a place to go in his room. Just the important stuff got to go back in.

Then, we sorted the remaining stuff into piles, stuff to be given away, and stuff to be thrown away, and stuff to be put in storage.

I got him to part with some of his "nature collection".

He got rid of three birds nests, a zip-lock bag containing the mouse bones and other solid waste extracted from dissected owl pellets (he was studying the owl's diet...I blame the school for giving him the idea)...some rocks, and some sticks and leaves and about half of the bird feathers.

Remaining is: a much smaller collection of bird feathers, the dried skin fragment of an alligator gar (skin, and scales), the jaw-bone of an alligator gar, a collection of rocks and minerals, a couple handfuls of sea shells, a fossilized mausasaurous tooth, and a prehistoric squid fossil. They all fit in a small shoe box.

We got the artwork down to a small pile of the favorites, managed to eliminate a huge number of toys that will be passed on to younger children, and just generally, got the toys and games and puzzles and projects corralled into various plastic bins that sit neatly on shelves.

There is a bin for the mis-begotten Lego’s creatures that slides under the bed. He really DOES have monsters under his bed...they are just of his own making, but at least they are no longer collecting dust underfoot. He assures me it will all be worth it when he becomes rich and famous for winning some design competition that he plans to enter with one of his best friends.

The Dungeons and Dragons manuals, NPC sketches, and the note-books full of master plans for campaigns that will "blow away" his friends with their diabolical complexity and sheer evil genius all fit on one shelf.

The novel-in-progress is in a binder...on a shelf.

Unless this child grows a sense of organization and order, he is destined for a future of only being able to function in a think-tank environment...

News from my home town.

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:00:34 GMT

Finally! A news alert from my hometown that doesn't have anything to do with the weather, a tragic accident, corruption, missing persons, or bodies being found!

Bemidji got mentioned in a sit-com on national television.

Behold! The power of the Femmme-mullet!

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:53:16 GMT

An old friend of mine from college just posted the above picture on Facebook. Ah yes, that's me, class of '86. My senior picture. I hate having my picture taken, and I usually delete pictures of myself that go up on the internet, if I can. What's weird about this, though, is I don't even recognize myself in that picture anymore.

The Joe-collage's-girlfriend-prep-look was never mine. But it always felt like a costume. I was assured that if I didn't go with that look, I would regret it later. They might be right. I liked wearing it to school afterwards, because it threw people for such a loop. People would say funny stuff like: "Did you just get back from a meeting with your probation officer?"

Silly people. I never had a probation officer. You had to be some sort of hoodlum super-achiever to even get really arrested back then. They'd put the cuffs on you, and haul you in and make your parents come and get you, but to actually get CHARGED with a crime and sent to court and put on probation? Nah. People didn't take kids seriously in the olden days.

I had friends that would say "I have a court date". To explain why they were leaving school later. I always suspected they were actually going to the dentist...but you know, maybe not.

Back to the picture...the beads and earrings are a bit much, aren't they?

The photographer kept telling me to unbutton that last button. I thought that was a little weird, as he was OLD. Like, he must have been at least THIRTY. I guess he was right, cause now that I try to picture it, having that last undone button done up would have looked pretty uptight, and it doesn't look nearly as slutty as it felt. It's just, next to a black sweatshirt with the arms and collar ripped off of it, that neck-line looks positively PLUNGING.

Years later, I saw that pose he had me in referred to as "the zit-popping pose".

The guy who took my senior pictures was the best in the area, though. You had to drive to a whole 'nother town to get to his studio, he was expensive, and it was kind of difficult to get an appointment.

I don't think I ever properly thanked my mom for going to such trouble and expense to get me the best photos possible. But in my defense, how could I have really been expected to understand it as a kid? It was pretty nice of her, though. I know now how hard she had to work for that money, and how long in advance she had to save it just for that...how far in advance she had to call for an appointment...how much less trouble she could have taken for perfectly adequate and much cheaper pictures to be taken in town.

But she went to the trouble to get a good photographer who would take the time to get her skittish, self-conscious, camera-shy daughter to relax in front of the camera and get some decent photos.

That it was that important to her kind of makes me feel pretty good.

I seem tense?

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:18:13 GMT

Samantha: "Tense? Me? I'm not tense. Am I? When did you first notice?"

Jack: "As. We. Met."

- Carter and O'Neill, "Ascension" Stargate, SG-1

I have the Best. Students. Ever. Tonight I got a Christmas present from one of my Kung fu families (the dad and two kids take the classes).

They gave me a gift card for a massage.

Like I said: Best. Students. Ever.

UPDATE: My, Christmas DID come early this year. Pcomeau gave me a link to this Rodney video, which is Frickin' PERFECT:

Random thought: Putting Daniel, who is cutest when he is annoyed and uncomfortable together in an episode with Rodney, who is cutest when he is being annoying and discomforting was the most genius Atlantis-related idea ever.

Random Thought 2: Is is bad that I also think that my husband is cutest when annoyed and uncomfortable?

Why I left small-town America

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:05:15 GMT

First things first: the turkey was delicious. I made bleuberry and pumpkin pies, pea salad and calico beans. My in-laws made the Turkey, the potatoes, and the stuffing. There was much rejoicing. Rocky and I took a moon-light walk along the lake with the dog. We also went for a day-light walk along the lake with the dog and Grasshopper.

I climbed out on a tree over-hanging the lake. Grasshopper reacted thusly: "MOM!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?! That's stupid, and crazy and DANGEROUS! I wanna do it!" So he did, of course. That's the WHOLE POINT of bringing kids up to the countryside, so they can get a taste of the crazy, stupid and dangerous stuff that kids are supposed to do.

We were up north-ish visiting my in-laws for Thanksgiving. I sort of miss the small-town life sometimes. I somewhat miss being able to just jaunt on down to the gravel-pit and shoot some cans, or being able to build a bonfire just however frickin’ big you want to build it without the pesky fire-marshal getting involved…not having to mess around with tricky, arbitrary ordinances whenever you want to do a bit of home-improvement or build a garden shed or a pole-barn or whatever.

But then I occasionally have occasion to interact with people who live in said small towns, and I say “Oh yeah…” and my madness is cut short.

Well, like I said, we were visiting my in-laws, and we were in Rocky’s hometown because his mother loves a parade. In particular, she loves to see her grandkids at a parade jumping up-and-down and getting excited about the floats, and running out to grab candy, etc etc.

Some of you know that my Mother-in-law isn’t well. She’s fighting cancer and related ailments; but she is tough and determined to get every bit of fun and joy out of life that she can.

This parade we were going to is a “fish-house parade” It happens every year, the day after Thanksgiving, and it has become a bit of a family tradition for us to go see it. It is a gloriously goofy, kitschy, hick sort of event. People turn their fish-houses into floats, and dress up and do all sorts of silly stunts.

For instance, the area volunteer fire-fighters were pulled along a parade route in a hot-tub filled with ice-water. They were wearing water-proof suits, but still…whoa. That had to be cold.

Anyway, we showed up early and snagged one of the handicapped parking spots, as my mother-in-law cannot spend a lot of time in the cold, or standing on the street. She really needs to stay in the vehicle. We got pretty much the last spot. It was the same spot we’ve had the last couple of years, right near the beginning of the route.

I saw a couple of chairs sitting on the side-walk, but didn’t think anything of it. That part of the street had been designated as Handicapped parking. Any reasonable person, when they realized their mistake, would move somewhere else.

Silly me. Naturally, the guy that the chairs belonged to felt the need to stand right in front of my in-laws van with his brood, obstructing my Mother-in-Law’s view. The guy’s three kids were aggressive little urchins who scooped up every scrap of candy thrown their direction, and then, they ran down the way and also tried to snatch up all of the candy thrown toward Grasshopper. Not that I was worried about Grasshopper getting candy, ‘cause lord knows, we can buy him plenty of candy…but it’s the fun of getting it that is the important part.

My Father-in-law asked the guy politely twice to move out of the way so that they could see the parade, but the guy kept drifting back in front of their line of sight…and he was holding the youngest of the kids so that he was an extra obstruction.

Finally, I asked Rocky if he would go and ask the guy to move down toward the back of the van, rather than standing in front of it. The guy bristled like he was going to start something, but just as he started to realize how big Rocky is, Rocky’s Dad got out of the van.

“Is there a problem?”

The guy started to get up in Rocky’s dad’s face yelling about how he parked right in front of his chairs. Anyone who’s ever met my father-in-law could have told him that was a bad idea.

You know how some people are just QUIET? Like, the stiller and more focused and more quiet they get, the more you feel a certain need to be on the correct side of them? Well, apparently this guy didn’t get that.

It took several minutes longer than it would take someone with half a brain for the guy to realize he was out of his depth. My Father-in-law was calm, laser-focused, and exuded a steely confidence that you really, really shouldn’t ignore.

The redneck idiot was all-over the place, twitching and shifty-eyed, leaning forward, off balance, his physical movement and posture betraying no sense of discipline or training, or even a shred of mental focus...

“What are you going to do about it?” I heard the man ask.

“Well, for one thing, I’ll call the police, and they can sort this out.”

“I’ve got a cell phone right here” Said Rocky, pulling it out and handing it to his dad.

“Well. I’ve got one too.” Says the redneck.

“Go ahead and use it.” Says Rocky, “It should be interesting to see what happens.”

“This spot is designated for handicapped parking,” I say, “you don’t have any grounds.”

Rednecked idiot has decided that he’s not getting anywhere with the big dude, or the old dude, so he decides to get up in my face next:

“I don’t care, you got it? I DON’T CARE.”

I just smirked at him. I can see there’s not even any sense in pointing out that the facts don’t change whether he cares or not. He’s wrong. He can care or not care, but if he pushes this, he’s going to lose. I guess I was a typical liberal elitist, looking down on the poor stupid guy who just wanted to wish away inconvenient truths like Handicapped Parking signs.

Typical.

I watched the reality sink in as he watched my Father-in-law on the phone, though.

Rednecked idiot slunk away, and took his ill-mannered brood with him.

The saddest thing is, though, I think the whole thing spoiled my mother-in-law’s enjoyment of the parade. She put a good face on it, but it made me sad, too. Because there ARE some fun things about small town life, but for every wholesome, fun, family event, there is some ignorant, self-centered, anti-handicapped-parking redneck asshole who wants to shit all over it.

And worst of all, here I am with just a little bit of an edge from being ready to get my fight on, and Kung Fu has been cancelled for Thanksgiving weekend.

Obamamania hits Spain.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:54:50 GMT

If nothing else, Obama has made it easier to be an American overseas.

Rocky and I were just in Spain.

From our hotel window on the 10th floor of the AC Barcelona on Diagonal Ave, we could see this:

(although, from that angle, it looked like a characature of Richard Prior...this is a much better perspective)

Here's the story: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1509947

If you read it, you will see that originally, it was intended to question the out-sized expectations and exceitment that is Obamamania.

You will also see that the creator of the piece is an Obama "fan"...but a cautious one. Remembering that he is just a man.

The right has tried to inflate him to some out-sized anti-Christ, saying somehow he will march down our streets and collect our guns and Bibles, and have his Kenyan relatives put a witch -curse on us.

Some in the left seem to have forgotten that most of his campaign promises came with a "we will" in front of them, not an "I will".

But for one week I enjoyed walking around in Spain getting friendly smiles and thumbs-ups from strangers saying "Obama!". Having strangers tell me over beer that America has a history of doing things that no other country would do, and now once again, we have done something that no other country would do, and it is good.

It was described to me as a return to greatness, a rise in the moral mandate of America in the world...a leader (America) showing the way into a better future. It could have been the beer, but this recent election was spoken of with admiration and happiness to me by British, Norwegian and Spanish people. They couldn't stop telling me about how great America was (and is), though they were a little worried about us for a while there.

A waitress with no English at all tried to give me a newspaper with Obama on the cover, announcing his election. Everywhere I went, people asked me how I voted. Even though Obama was not my first choice way back at the beginning, I was happy to be able to say I voted for him...but when the hype dies down, I hope that people remember how he talked about how this was going to be difficult, and not everyone would be happy with every decision, and how we were going to have to do it together, and something would be asked of all of us, and it would be more than just "take a trip to Disney World" or "buy yourself a flat-screened TV for Christmas."

(BTW, does everyone remember when the conservative perscription to fix the economy was "go out and buy stuff"...and now suddenly it's the liberals' fault that people were buying too much damn stuff? What is up with that?)

Update #1 courtesy of Alan:

Speaking of going forward and not going back, vote with your wallet! You can go here to find out which businesses and business owners contributed money to pass "Proposition 8". In this way, you can then decide if you want your money to go to a business that will take some of the profits and turn it into funding for a divided, unequal America.

I Want This Book!!!

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:58:38 GMT

I want this book.

I heard about it here.

But right now I am reading this book:

I got it from Ben (The once and hopefully future Eclectics Anonymous)

thanks BEN!

And say, is anyone interested in a blog-based discussion of The Big Sort?

Yestahday were me birthday

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:58:08 GMT

I was going to be alone all day, but lo, Rocky did come home early.

I was going to be without presents, and lo, there were chocolate in abundance.

I also got a beer glass from the Hard Rock Cafe.

We took a bike ride to Noodles and Company and lo, I consumed carbs.

It were a good day.

Would have been perfect had I not been turning 41.

Aaaarrrrrghhh!

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:13:50 GMT

Got up early today, and made pancakes. Then ran to get Tim's best friend, who is visiting from Montreal. Then, I took the two of them down to the Renaissance Festival (to meet Tim's girlfriend so they could hang out), and ran back so that I could get an early start on the latsest batch of jelly and make some bread. Got the bread all mixed up and set in hot water in the sink to raise (the air is too cool and dry here right now to raise it on the counter), and went to pick more grapes...

...the houseguests finished eating, and drove off past me to go to the Renaissance Festival, and I rushed home in time to punch down the bread, put it in pans and start it raising again...

Only to find that someone had stacked their dirty breakfast dishes in the bread bowl (on top of the dough), and thoughtfully sprayed water on the whole mess to rinse the dishes.

Grumble.

Well, I'm grumbling now....before there was cursing.

So now I am making a whole new batch of bread, but my day just got much more packed. Sometimes the little set-backs are the most aggrevating.

It's so easy to lose perspective. It's not like that was the last of the flour in the house or anything.

Post Susan G. Komen brain-dump

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:57:58 GMT

I have a just walked sixty- plus miles in the Susan G. Komen 3-day Walk For the Cure.

The actual total was 61.5. Thank you to my sponsors. Everytime I thought it would be easier to take the sweep van, I thought of you, and how I was representing you and the money you invested in my participation. It kept me strong and helped me finish. Thank You.

Yes, I walked every single mile, and the half-mile too. This does not include all of the walking we had to do at camp in order to get through the thousands of tents to the one end of camp to get dinner…and to the other end of camp to get a shower…and then again in the morning for breakfast, medical tent the get blisters properly lanced and taped, etc.

The rest of my team finished as well:

Suzie Andert (three-time veteran of the 3-day; friend, advisor, coach, and the prettiest darned supply pack-mule Ive ever seen)

Leslie Dwight (Who gets my "super-trooper of the year" award. This woman is a walking machine)

Susan Grove (Who got swept once due to her sprained ankle, but the extra mileage made up for it..and anyway, getting swept takes nothing away from the fact that she walked around thirty miles with a sprained ankle…and was only taped for 17 of them)

And me.

About half-way through, my ankle started hurting so I went to the medical tent and had it adjusted by a chiropractor. Apparently, I’d walked 15 miles with it out of joint. I’m glad the chiropractor knew what to do…all I knew was that I had a large purple-and-magenta bruise on the blade of my foot, and my ankle was swelling. And adjustment and some support tape made all the difference. Then I just had the pain from the inflammation to deal with…but it was less than half what I’d been dealing with the day before.

The bottom of my right foot has three large blisters…one that actually covers the entire ball of my foot, and two the size of quarters on either side of the heel. There is no epidermis left between any of my toes. On my left foot, I have two small blisters on either side of my heel.

I’m not stiff and sore, though…a testament to a well-designed training schedule and the power of frequent, disciplined stretching. Also, I think the fact that I slept on the hard ground rather than an air mattress helps. Don’t know why, but I find that I am less stiff and sore after a big physical event if I sleep somewhere firm. Air mattresses or soft mattresses kill my back and hips!

#1 important re-cap point! Rocky watched the kids all weekend, including our God-daughter (Sue's daughter). He managed the house very well. It looked great when I got home. He got all of the kids to all of their events (some of them 25 miles away), got the kids to do chores, had dinner waiting for us when we got home....etc. He's so wonderful!

He also brought the kids to see us and cheer us. They waited for several hours until we walked past. Sue almost cried. I was so happy. For the moment, all of the pain went away...and actually the last 2.5 miles went much easier because they were there for us. Then, they also went forward and were there to see us finish as well!

Factoid: Did you know that your feet can swell up so much that your toe-nails turn black and fall off? No, that didn't happen to me, or anyone on our team, but I heard at least a dozen people say it happened to them...and more who said that it had happened to them one of the other times they did the walk. One lady said she only had three toenails left, and was pondering whether or not she could get a discount on her next pedicure.

At one point during the last half of the second day, Sue and I both had ankle injuries (we later found out that she had a sprain from twisting it on a bit of uneven ground. I had a bone out of joint) were Marching along in grim silence, just putting one foot in front of the other, feeling the pain each time, and moving through it one step at a time.

Sue: "What's that up there?"

Me: "Nothing. Just more people."

Sue: "No...no. I think I see Bataan."

Of course, while she was historically accurate in that the Bataan death march was sixty miles long...technically, Bataan would have been BEHIND us, and there would have been soldiers yelling in Japanese and shooting the stragglers, rather than "sweep vans". Oh yeah, and no "Pit Stops" with food, water and port-a-potties.

Still, the analogy FELT accurate enough.

Another snippet of conversation with Suzie (not to be confused with Sue)

Me: "Ouch".

Suzie: "Uh-oh, what's wrong."

Me: "Nothing. Sorry. One just escaped.

Suzie: "An ouch escaped?"

Me: "Yeah. I try to keep them in a little corral so they don't get out and bother you. I've got a little collie that runs around herding them into the corral."

Suzie: "The inside of your brain makes me laugh."

There was a little boy visiting his mother at the lunch stop, and he ran over to a crew member with his mom's empty water bottle:

Boy: "Can I have some water for my mom?"

Crew: "Sure. Hey kid, do you know why I work crew?"

Boy: "No."

Crew: "So when you grow up, you won't have to." (because breast cancer will have a cure)

I’ll post about this again, and do a much better job of it, but I wanted to give you some idea about what went on.

When we have pictures, I will post again. I especially need to show you the picture of, and tell you about “mullet pig”. He was one of the volunteer crew members that helped us (and entertained and encouraged us) at street-crossings.

One last thought: THIS is the strength of our nation. These women are housewives and office workers and beauty consultants and three-time cancer survivors...and yes, some figherfighters and police officers, and personal trainers...but mostly ordinary everyday women.

And they can walk sixty miles on sprained ankles and feet that have lost toenails, and taped-up knees.

They can walk and sing funny filk songs about "I'm walking on blisters (to the tune of "Im walking on Sunshine")" and they can stay up an extra hour and dance like there's no tomorrow on day two.

And if they start to falter, all it takes to keep them going is a sign that reminds them that "blisters don't need chemo" (that one worked for me), or a thought about their sponsors, or a funny man dressed up in a pig mask and magenta hair weaves (I'll tell you about him later).

If they think a cause is worth it. You might say that it isn't important to finish, because we raised the money whether we finish or not...but that isn't true.

See...many people say that it is impossible to find a cure for breast cancer. Many people also say that it is impossible for an average suburban housewife to walk sixty miles.

Well, here's news to them. The "impossible" is NOT impossible.

So there.

Now, Im going to the gym.

Personal post for Jenny.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:21:56 GMT

My friend Jenny recently asked me to do more personal posts, as she has no idea what is going on with our family.

So here it is:

I hardly ever see Tim anymore (formerly known as Adventure Boy) since he is in marching band all of the time. However, I am his "friend" on Facebook, and he has me in the top level of clearance so I get to see all of his interactions.

Also, he has a girlfriend. They met at CONvergence. Nice fan girl, cute as a button. Nice family. They've had us over for a BBQ. First official date, a movie and several hours of "hanging out" at the Mall of America.

She made me a "friend" on Facebook too.

Grasshopper is working hard at school , and learning to get organized. Also, dealing with the frustration he feels do to being an imperfect perfectionist.

I start my Susan G. Komen walk tomorrow with my team, "Beautiful Feat"...captained by my best friend, Sue. I still have $200.00 in sponsorships left to raise, if anyone is interested.

Rock is going to drive us there and run the house until we get back.

My friend Falina is going to come down and give me a thereputic massage next week to help me recover (I love having a friend who is a generous massage therepist)

I just finished canning 36 more quarts of home-made wild Grape Juice. Just call me the "Suburban Scavenger" I had already managed to score enough wild grapes in random vacant lots and street-sidings to make 24 quarts of juice...but my family has already drank them. I still have to bake a blueberry pie (the last one's been eaten already) and then I have to pack for my walk. First job on returning home will be: as much choke-cherry syrup and jelly as I can product and presrve before the birds eat all the berries (unless the grapes are still good, in which case I will make a run at getting some grape jelly in.)

Rocky is in the throws of finishing his latest book. He has little to no life, although he has managed to get out and play tennis with the boys a couple of times in the last week.

Gary and Isa visit: Day 2

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:34:30 GMT

[Gary and Isa visit: Day 1 Here]

The trip to the air show was low-key.

Gary was really “chuffed” to see a B-17 bomber, and get to take a tour inside. Also, he was like a little kid when he got to see it take off.

The boys talked to several WWII veterans, and were at their most polite and attentive. They asked good questions. They talked to a guy who had been a ball-turret gunner, and had flown 28 missions. He had copies of the bomber’s mission logs, and photos of the damage taken in every mission. Also, he had dummies of the sorts of shells that were used in the aircraft-to-aircraft fighting.

They talked to two guys who flew with Doolittle, and a guy who was the co-pilot in a B-24. They got an autographed copy of the book that told the story of the two Pacific Theater pilots.

Oh yeah, and an astronaut. Gary and Isa purchased an autographed copy of the astronaut’s photo to donate to a charity auction for their local fan convention, and a mission patch.

The WWII veterans seemed surprised and pleased when my boys shook their hands and said “thank you”.

The nice thing about the Eden Prairie air-show is that it is very poorly attended compared to some of the bigger shows.

Then we went to see the Star Wars animated movie. It is cute and fun. It probably didn’t deserve to get the savaging that it got from the critics…but if it was anything other than issued by the Star-Wars franchise, it probably would have been released direct-to-video.

Then, the big news.

We went to a BBQ dinner. The part that makes it the big news was that the BBQ dinner was being hosted by the parents of a girl that Adventure Boy met at Convergence. She’s a really nice girl. Cute as a button and a total fan-girl.

They, her brother, and Grasshopper disappeared into the basement to play Ecofluxx. We visited with the parents and their friends. Nice people. Gary and Isa had a good time.

On deck for today, Tim will go and practice in the Marching Band all day, Rocky will work on his next book, and Gary, Isa, Grasshopper and I will go to the Minnesota Zoo.

Long rambling post

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:01:31 GMT

Gary and Isa are here from Britain! Grasshopper is home from orchestra camp! Jay-the-dog is about to turn himself inside out. Today, we are taking Gary and Isa to a good old-fashioned pancake breakfast and an airshow.

Last night we went to a party thrown by a friend/neighbor. We left, but not until after I got into a “fight” with a republican.

No, not really. It was fun for both of us. It all started when I left our table in the pleasant back garden to find somewhere else to be.

We were having a great conversation when a guy standing right behind me launched into a diatribe about how the press was burying the “Johhny” Edwards story, and this was proof of a liberal bias in the press.

What? First of all, it was all over the place, and if they didn’t have Olympic coverage to run, they’d still be riding that horse until we ALL wanted to scream. Secondly, if the press DID cover it to their satisfaction, they’d make it into a complaint about how he’s such a pretty-boy media whore he’ll even use an affair to get attention. Seriously, John Edwards was so far out of the news until this erupted that they were practically on different planets.

So here’s a general drift of the conversation. I don’t remember it exactly, but its my best recollection”

Rep. man #1 “What do you think of this Johnny Edwards situation?”

Rep. man #2 “What a slime-ball he fathered that baby AFTER she was sick again with cancer.”

Rep. woman: “What is his WIFE still doing with him? Doesn’t she have any self-respect?”

Rep. man” 1: “She doesn’t have any choice, she’s not going to live much longer. She’s stuck.”

(Just an aside here, does anyone actually believe that Elizabeth Edwards could be forced , by circumstances or anything else, to do something that she did not want to do? I mean, wasn’t the Republican line on her that she was a brazen hussy who wore the pants in the family, feminized her husband, and didn’t know her place, or when to keep her mouth shut? Like, wasn’t that just a few weeks ago? And I would also like to point out that when Democrat women stand by their philandering men, they have no self-respect, but when Republican women stand behind their philandering men, they have family values.)

Rep. woman: “They won’t let him speak at the convention now”

Rep. Man#1: “Oh, they MigHT. How do you know they won’t? You never know what they’ll do.”

Rep. woman:” Ugh. He’s such a slime-ball.”

Rep. man #1: “And they’re not covering it at all! If it were a Republican, you know they’d find out everything and we’d hear about it, believe me.”

I DIDN’T get up and point out that the reason Republican affairs have gotten more coverage recently is:

1) Larry Craig was an out spoken homophobe (in other words, someone expressing unreasonable fear of homosexuality) who worked tirelessly to link homosexuality with pedophilia, libeled homosexuals as a group relentlessly, and pretty much made “traditional values” his calling card. That made him a story.

2) He broke a law in trying to solicit sex. There was an arrest, and he pleaded guilty hoping to keep it quiet and avoid public consequences, then regretted and retracted his plea when there were public consequences.

3) He was the latest in a long string of prominent homophobes caught in the act of engaging in the behaviors that they attribute to the homosexual community at large. (public sex, prostitution, drugs (Haggard), pedophilia (that one senator in the page scandal), etc.

4) Craig was arrested, and there was an arrest report, so the media could jump all over it. The Edwards story was broken by the National Enquirer. Running a false lead from the National Inquirer is probably a lot like getting duped into publishing false papers involving the President…a career killer.

5) Craig was arrested on a slow news week, the Edwards thing blew up in the advance of the Olympics coverage.

I’ll cut out a few minutes of topic jumping and complaining about how rich Edwards is (I thought Republicans admired rich people),taxes and how the Dems just want to spend willy-nilly on all of these “entitlements” and things that don’t do us any good…the one that made me have to get up and leave was this:

Rep. Man #1: ”Just think about typhoid and diseases like that. I just saw a show on it, and can you believe how many people they used to kill? I mean, wow.”

Rep. woman: (awe in her voice) “Yeah. Wow.”

And then they lapsed into profound silence.

*groan* Yeah…”wow”.

But I guess the Fox News commentators that write all of their lines hadn’t put any words into their brains to describe things like robust public health infrastructure, reality-based policy decisions, evolution-based genetics research that allows for analysis of mutations in diseases to create new vaccines to keep up with the rapid evolution of viruses.

I got up and left, ‘cause I was having trouble not saying anything, and these were not people you could talk to. They were possessed by John Gibson. Total Fox-bots.

And our host immediately introduced me to his “Republican friend” and left.

And one of the first things the “Republican friend” said was that the Dem’s didn’t provide funding for the 35W bridge, but were trying to blame the collapse of the bridge on Pawlenty.

Me: “Actually, there was funding specifically to brace those girders in the budget, and Pawlenty specifically vetoed the roads and bridges line item in the budget that would have provided the funds to fix the bridge, until it could be rebuilt”.

There ensued a lively and intelligent conversation where the guy didn’t dismiss my facts out of hand, while still challenging me to support them, and it was fun ‘cause he wasn’t a Fox-box idiot.

Thank God for the occasional Republican who is not a Fox-bot idiot. Cause talking to people who only agree with you can get boring, but talking to idiots is self abuse…and not the fun kind.

One of his points was that it was possible that bracing the girders would not have prevented the tragedy. Which is true enough…but IF everything that could reasonably have been done, HAD been done…and if Pawlenty hadn’t stood in the way of reasonable preventive action, I would merely disagree with some of his other policy decisions…but as it is, he DID stand in the way of reasonable action to prevent the tragedy, and a tragedy DID occur, and he is trying to somehow make it the fault of the congress.

Googeling

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:10:10 GMT

The other night I heard from an old friend. A blog-friend that has disappeared off of the internet, and who I feared was gone forever. He sent me an e-mail, and after a few turns of e-mail he told me he wanted to voice-talk.

So we got the Skype going, and just chatted. It was a fun conversation that leapt from tree to tree…politics, science, literature, childhood stories, exotic weaponry, etc.

I don’t remember when I informed him that I was using Google. I think it was something to do with the latest research showing that people who are HIV-resistant have resistance to other diseases endemic to the human population. ..but he stopped dead.

“That is so cool!”

“um…it’s what I do.”

I was a little non-plussed, because actually, I was using Google as a brain-augmentation to keep up with him. People who know me have been known to say that I remember everything I read.

That’s not true. I remember bits and pieces and drips and drabs of everything I read with vivid clarity. Enough to remember it when I am in a conversation and then want to use it, but not with enough completeness to have it actually be useful if challenged or queried. Google is my friend. I remember enough of something to craft a good search term, and Google and skimming ability provide the rest.

Anyway.

My friend thought it was enormously cool that here I was, sitting there, Googling our conversation topics, hunting down facts for clarity and accuracy and to add to the conversation. Sort of a mind-meld cooperative grok session.

I had to stop and realized that it WAS enormously cool. See, I have other friends that I do this with. Karen and I will sometimes (when we have time at the same time) have what I shall now dub “multi-media conversations” that include phone, e-mail, Google searches, etc. Before I dropped IM, we used to have that as well.

Our friend Eric and I will sometimes spend an hour or so on the phone with household tasks running in the back ground and Google at the ready.

But the coolness of it had sort of slipped my mind due to the habitual nature.

Its true. Its cool. The feeling of talking to someone and being able to really tear into a subject…even if it is a frivolous one. To chase down a fact and e-mail the URL to someone rather than just say “I read it somewhere”. It adds a dimension and flavor and intensity to conversation that you can’t get any other way.

‘course, some people are annoyed by it:

“Why can’t we just talk”?

I suppose the intensity can begin to feel more like a data-download than a pass-time, but I guess that’s also what makes it so cool.

Most people don’t do it that way. Most people don’t like that sort of thing, and I suppose that it might not even occur to many people to have a conversation that way.

You know, that really IS cool.

Come to our Happy Hour Fundraiser!!! Bring a friend!!!

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:57:19 GMT

Happy Hour Benefit for the
3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer

Monday, August 11th

5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Billy’s on Grand (in the Café)

857 Grand Avenue
Victoria and Grand in St. Paul
(651) 292-9140

Live music by The Fabulous Retreads

Complimentary appetizers

(generously donated by Billy’s on Grand)

Happy hour drink specials

Suggested donation $10 per person
All in-person donations will include a raffle ticket for a prize drawing.

Please come support team Beautiful Feat in our goal to raise $8,800 for the fight against breast
cancer. On September 19 – 21 we will be walking 60 miles through the Twin Cities with
thousands of other men and women in order to raise funds to support breast cancer research
and education. To find out more about the 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer, go to
www.the3day.org.

Team Beautiful Feat is: Susan Grove (breast cancer survivor and team
captain), Susy Andert, Leslie Dwight and Teresa Lhotka.

If you can not make it to happy hour, but would be willing to make a contribution,
please go online to: www.the3day.org • Click on “Donate Now” • Click on
“Search for a team” and enter “Beautiful Feat” as the Team Name • Click on the
team name which will appear below • Team members are listed at the bottom of
the team homepage - click on a member (preferably the one currently furthest from
their fundraising goal) and follow the directions to make a donation. Or if you
prefer, e-mail susandert@gmail.com for the mailing address to send a check. Thank
you for supporting the fight against breast cancer and us on this incredible journey!

All donations are tax deductible!

I case you have any doubts about Susan G. Komen, here is their Charity Navigator rating:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4509

It's been a day.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:36:39 GMT

Started off the day with a 15-mile walk with Sue. We were going to walk the "chain of lakes" except we got lost going from Lake of the Isles to Cedar Lake and then we accidentally walked around Cedar lake twice...so that added a lot of milage...then we missed where the cars were parked on Calhoun and ended up walking even more.

We walked for six hours. Assuming a 3-mile-an-hour pace (which I bet we walked at least 3.5), that's at least 18 miles.

I drove home and soaked in a hot bath and stretched out, and went to Kung Fu. I was late for weapons class, so I just did open-hand class and sparring. I got my butt kicked in sparring.

You might ponder why I took a bath before going to work out some more? Well...I brought a half-gallon canteen of water with me on the walk. I drank all of that and filled it up again. Then, I drank all of that,and filled it up again. Then, I drank some of that...yet when I got home, I weighed two pound less than I had when I left the hous that morning. That's a whole lot of sweat.

Then Geekgoddess swung by and we car-pooled to dinner, and then she and I went a-fringe-ing.

We saw "Bonnie Prince Charlie". The directing and acting was very good. The singing ranged from more than adequate to very good. The story was mostly full of senseless death and dimemberment. It was well done, and it is the sort of play you find youself glad you saw...without actually enjoying it very much.

Then we went to 'Fringe Central" and hung out with Sasha and Chis. GG and I drank coffee.

On the way home, Geekgoddess and I saw a group of bikers. Our conversation went like this:

Me: They're all wearing birth-control glasses.

GG: Yeah.

Me: That one guy has sun glasses on.

GG: Hey, he wears his sunglasses at night.

Me: He also has a weird bike seat. It cradels his butt. (miming butt-cradeling with hands)

GG: He has a butt cup.

Me: He has an ass-letic supporter.

Then I casually asked what was going on about with a mutual friend and I learned something about someone that I really like which drug up feelings related to someone I really hate. Now they are all confused and mixed up and I don't like it very much.

Then Rocky came home and Im going to go cuddle him now.

Adventure Boy leaves tomorrow.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:23:37 GMT

Adventure Boy leaves tomorrow on his trip to China. It's hard to believe that it's that time already.

Those of you who are interested can follow his class on their blog.

I'm sure it will be a great adventure.

He's going to learn so much, and it will be so wonderful for him to see the two boys who stayed with us again.

Wait an minute...??

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:44:17 GMT

I just realized something.

When I write in this blog it is usually because I FEEL something and want to make a note of it.

The words that best describe the emotions I most often have when I write are:

Surprised

Wondering

Confused (one of my favorite emotions! It means I've got something to learn right in front of me!)

Joy

Interested

Curious

Perplexed

Elated

Amused

A lot of people have read this blog. A few people have commented on it. Some of those people have commented on the blog itself, many have just sent e-mail.

Sometimes those comments are along the lines of "Why do you let this bother you?"

They read me as:

Annoyed

Bitter

Angry

Crabby...

Well...you know.

So, I just REALIZED this. My emotions are not coming through. Some of you get that I'm worked up...but you attribute the worked-up-ed-ness as negativity.

I'd just like to say for the record that I am a student of the universe. Not, perhaps a particularly apt one, and maybe one prone to some flights of fancy once in a while (I do love me my Scifi)...but EVERYTHING and ANYTHING will seize my attention and focus...no matter how trivial it may seem to you, I can find it fascinating.

I might think about the obnoxious behaviour of someone days later, and people say "just let it go" because they think I am still stinging from ill treatment.

In fact, I am still just trying to figure out what happened, trying to fit it into my world-order...

...understand it.

I can continue to worry an idea long after the life has left it for most people.

Like Eyore playing with the burst balloon and the empty honey-pot.

It might cut for some a gloomy figure...but trust me: I'm perfectly happy. Don't worry about me.

Observations

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:31:18 GMT

When the bread comes out of the oven...the first loaf disappears within a couple of hours (before it is completely cool), and my family only eats it with butter.

The second loaf lasts 2-4 days and is mostly used for toast and sandwitches.

This tells me that if I only made one loaf at a time, I would be baking every day and my family would weigh 300 lbs. apeice.

If I made three loaves at a time, the third loaf would very likely get mouldy before it was finished...

so it is probably for the best that I make exactly two loaves at a time.

My best bread-making hint: raise the bread by setting the bowl and the pans in the kitchen sink, with about 1.5 inches of hot tap water, and cover the bowl and pans with a dishtowel. The bread will raise perfectly every time.

It's not easy, being a funnel-head dog.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:37:52 GMT

Poor Jay has a sore on his left side...right behind the shoulder.

The vet thinks it might be a "hotspot": a scratch or scrape or bug-bite that he has worried and irritated through licking.

But he's not SURE that it's a hot spot.

He thinks it looks "a little funny".

He wants to treat it as a hot spot for the next two weeks, and then look at it and decide if we should just take it off and get it biopsied.

the main treatment for "hotspots" appears to be: oral antibiotics, topical antiseptic/anesthetics spray, and...as the vet assistant so ironically put it...a "party hat".

Those stupid-looking funnels that go around the dog's neck and stick out past his head to keep him from licking himself. I've also heard them referred to as "lampshades" and "Victorian collars".

But there's no gettin' around it - Jay is a funnel-head dog now, and he knows it. His shame and humiliation are painful to watch, especially at those times when he is trying to suffer them with a sort of false dignity that is unbecoming to him. He has never been a dignified dog, naturally, so seeing him try to fake it is heartbreaking.

The only consolation are those times he gives in to the goofiness of it by doing things like tossing a stuffed animal up into the air, and then catching it in the funnel like one of those Mexican ball-in-a-cup games.

Tired, oh so tired.

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:04:28 GMT

I spent last night running around doing unceasing battle with the brain-goblins...while storms raged outside.

Apparently I was not the only one, because the dog was having nightmares too. I ended up letting him sleep at the foot of the bed and he seemed to do much better.

But on the upside, it is the first day of summer vacation.

Adventure Boy got his numerals in Band and Drama, and has a solid "B" average for his last term in his Freshman year. I think was can safely speculate that he has finished "adjusting" to high school. He's backing off a little on his schedule next year...not taking any accellerated classes this time. I think he hopes to bump up his GPA and letter in Band and Drama.

He plans to go to the gym and work out, and continue Kung Fu in lieu of organized sports...which is just fine with me. Marching Band is an excellent team experience, and actually quite athletic enough.

Grasshopper got an A, three Bs and two Ds. We will be working the summer homeschool magic on the two "D" subjects. I think it is a matter of learning proper study techniques, as he is usually quite good in these subjects, and seemed to be working hard at them...but he just wouldn't follow my suggestions for how to study them more efficiently...so I think he wasted a lot of effort.

He seems to be interested in running, so I hope to go running with him a lot this summer.

Rocky set up the weight bench at home, so even on days when he can't make it to the gym, he can get a few lifts in quick at home with me spotting him. He seems to be leaning toward biking...so I'll probably get a lot of biking in with him.

And of course, I'm still training for the breast cancer 3-day walk. Linkage in case you havn't contributed to my fund yet, but would like to:

http://08.the3day.org/site/TR?px=2078421&fr_id=1191&pg=personal&JServSessionIdr007=uq74uf3q11.app322a

And a big, hearty thank-you to those of you who have ponied up enough cash to bump me past the 1/5 mark! I've got the best friends in the world! And even a couple of people I don't know came in from Rocky's blog and contributed! THANK YOU!

Now, I have to find something house-worky to do or I will fall asleep.

Yet ANOTHER evil thing I do.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:29:27 GMT

I just resumed my Hardanger fiddle lessons. I'd taken a two-year break because of a combination of the car-crash shoulder injury, and the fact that the grinding stress of the last couple years has turned my brain to mush.

Anyway, hardanger fiddles are cool.

They have eight or nine strings (more traditional fiddles have eight, more modern varieties have nine) Four top strings, which are bowed, and four or five understrings which resonate in sympathy with the bowed strings. You often bow two or three strings at once, and use complex multiple fingerings to create elaborate embellishments on the melody.

Come to find out, that the fiddles supposedly came from the trolls, that really good fiddlers were often reputed to be taught by the devil, and that Hardanger fiddles were burned by Christians.

(Here's another source, and a quote:)

Because of the association with dark magic, thousands of fiddles were burned or destroyed by religious fanatics throughout the 19th century. This is one of the primary reasons that today's fiddlers have more contemporary instruments. It is also the reason that the few existing old ones are kept in sealed cases, like biological specimens.

Grump. First Science Fiction and rock and roll, then Martial Arts, then Yoga...now the hardanger fiddle.

How come the devil gets all the cool stuff?

More about the legends from this site:

Legends

Some hardingfele tunes are rhythmically very complex. The springar, though basically in 3/4, appears virtually impenetrable, with beats which vary widely in length; it is nevertheless a dance tune and is accompanied by foot stamping. More accessible are the different types of walking tune, from the slow march to the gangar, a steady 2/4 or 6/8. The halling is another 2/4 tune, played for a solo dance where a man attempts to leap high enough to kick a hat off a stick held by a girl. The origin of some of these old tunes is cloaked in legend. Some come from the troll or Nacken who lives in lakes, waterfalls and streams; if you hang your fiddle overnight under a bridge where he lives, the troll will retune your fiddle and play a tune on it, finally leaving his own instrument next to it. If on returning you pick up your own fiddle, the troll's tune and supernatural touch will beyours . If by mistake you pick up the troll's fiddle, your soul is his forever!

Rammeslatter are tunes which, because of their hypnotic quality can put player and listener alike into a state of trance; the fiddler will play, unable to stop, until someone drags the fiddle from his hands. It is said that fanitullen, the devil's tune, was first played by the man himself who appeared, hooves and all, at a village dance. He grabbed the fiddle and began playing a tune so wonderful that the gathered people continued dancing until they died from exhaustion- and then their corpses continued dancing until their skulls rolled out of the door and down the hill!

Another group of tunes, the Gammeldans, were imported from Sweden in the 19th century; these tend to be more predictable and less mysterious and melancholy. The mazurka has a bouncy 3/4 rhythm (eg. Brage Gilles Mazurka ); a similar dotted rhythm, but in 4/4 is found in the schottische (eg. Schottis fran (from) Lima .) Polkas, (not to be confused with polskas) and Reinlenders have a jolly 2/4 rhythm. Sweden has its equivalent to the walking tunes of Norway, including the brudmarsch (wedding march) and the ganglat. Gardeby Laten is a ganglat so often played that people sing along with it words which mean "aren't you sick of this tune yet?". Also well known is Appelbo Ganglat .

Probably the most important group of Swedish tunes are the polskas. These have a 3/4 rhythm with stress on the first and third beats; the emphasis of these beats varies considerably from region to region. Polskas, and indeed many Scandinavian tunes, are often named after a revered fiddler from the past whose playing defined a particular tune, though he is unlikely to have actually written it; for example Polska efter (after) Karl Linblad, or Polska e. Per Osa . Very useful for the fiddler is the skanklåt- an "I want to get paid " tune which reminds the guests at a wedding that the poor musician has been playing for five hours, hasn't been offered any sandwiches, hasn't been paid, and wants to go home.

Most of the above Swedish and gammeldans tunes are played on the normal fiddle (called flatfele in Norway), often in ensembles with other instruments such as accordion, recorder, or fattigmannsfele (poor man's fiddle)- the jew's harp. Spellmannslag are large groups of fiddlers who meet regularly to learn, play for enjoyment, and maintain the tradition.

Spider!

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:34:33 GMT

Yesterday I took out our old, broken-down kitchen faucet (I was the only one in the household who still had the “Fonzie touch”, and could work it), and replaced it with a shiny new one.

Well, I had SOME help. I was going to do it all myself, and I had begun to… I turned off the water supply under the sink and disconnected the faucet from the shut-off valves.

Then, I got my head-and-shoulders under the sink and began to try to remove the nut that kept the old faucet stuck to the sink.

As you might know, it was awkward. I had to twist my head just so to get it under the drain pipe where it ran out from the garbage disposal, performed a goose-neck, and then turned and ran into the wall. There were two angles that I could use to attack the problem: option one was crappy, and option two was a giant flying whirlpool of suck.

I went with option one, and began to remove the nut, one quarter turn at a time. I didn’t have a real good angle, so I ended up jigging the sink, a lot. Some old rusty crap rained down on me.

Since I am a former farm girl, I luckily had my mouth shut tightly, and I was just congratulating myself on not getting nasty old bits of rusty sink-crud in my teeth, when one of those bits of crud started scrambling down my neck.

I stifled a girly little shriek, twisted minutely, but vigorously, and gave a flip of my hand. A spider flew off my neck, landed on the bottom of the cabinet, and scurried to the safety of a small, dark hole in the corner. I went back to working, only to find that I needed two sets of hands for this next bit, because I needed someone to keep the assembly up-top from turning.

So I called Rocky in for moral support. When he’s home, he’s always happy to take a short break to lend a hand like this, and though I probably could have found some way to do it myself, I wanted an extra pair of hands.

I know some feminists will ridicule me for this, but I never claimed to be a feminist…so there.

I’m just sayin’ – Spider! ‘nuff said.

A little bit of team-work had the old faucet removed in no-time. Luckily, I got under-the-sink-duty, because several small but potent drips of rusty sink-crud-laden water still needed to fall after all the jiggling and jolting to get the old faucet disconnected, and Rocky needed to go to a meeting.

Rocky was kind enough to say that he thought that girls with rusty sink-crud drips on their face looked sort of cute. He was even convincing.

Then he had to leave for his meeting, and I figured all the old spiders were safely in hiding by then anyway. I got the new faucet assembled and installed in no-time…except…it was leaking. I tried to figure out where the leak was coming from, but it is difficult to turn the water off-and-on and look where the water is coming from at the same time, so I called our friend Eric.

He came right over and we found the problem. One of the connectors had some debris in it from the factory.

Eric said “Do you have some tweezers?”

“I’m forty years old and a natural brunette…do I currently look like Groucho Marks?”

“Uh…no.” Eric replied.

“Then of COURSE I have a tweezers.”

The debris was promptly removed, the hose re-connected, and viola! Perfectly working new faucet.

It was time for me to leave to get to go teach my Wednesday class, so I “thanked” Eric by giving him enough time to pick up his tools before hustling him out the front door, rounded up my boys (who are assisting me) and ran off to teach.

Today, we drill a hole to allow for the installation of my soap-dispenser. Woo Hoo! Soap dispenser!

Beautiful Feat

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:14:09 GMT

Once again, my friend Sue has done it: She’s gotten me into trouble, and over my head.

I’ve committed to participate in the Susan G Komen walk for the cure…3 days…sixty miles.

It’s mainly because, when your best friend comes to you and says “I have cancer” and you say “Let me know if there’s anything I can do”…you can’t really renege when she comes up with something…even if it is a grueling three-day walk in September. Even if it involves sleeping with a stranger in a two-man tent that even the site trying to recruit you describes as “cozy”.

Here’s my personal webpage for the event. It hasn’t been personalized yet, but the donation button works (nudge nudge).

Here’s the personal website for my team-mate Susy (not to be confused with Sue, who is also on my team, and has met her goal).

Our Team name is “Beautiful Feat”. Originally, I proposed the name “Oh, my DEAR GOD! My Feet! My Feet! My beautiful feet!”

Most people seemed to think it was really stupid, but nobody came up with anything better, so they shortened it, turned the word “feet” in to a word-play, and viola! Clever team name.

When we do a testicular cancer walk, though, I have the perfect team name picked out : “Not my gum-drop buttons!”

Anyway.

I’d like you to meet my personal trainer, J-dogg. He’s a real slave-driver. With him as my coach, I’ll be able to walk to Tibet. Not that I’d want to walk to Tibet:

But I’ve got a problem.

In order to do this, I have to raise $2,200 in donations.

That’s where you come in, gentle readers.

It is time to bring you and *the begging* together in the same place. I don’t ask much of you. I don’t put ads up here to make money, and I don’t make personal demands upon you except for the occasional participation event (which most of you ignore anyway).

I know you’re out there. I see the hit counts, and I can count subscribers on the newsreader sites…so don’t pretend you can’t hear me. Please, please Pleeeeeese contribute to my fundraising account.

And those of you who keep coming here off of Google searches for “Wookie Scrotum”…

…I think you get enough amusement just from that alone to make it worth a ten-spot.

Witness

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:29:41 GMT

Yesterday I had to run up to the Home Despot to meet my Sifu and hand off some sashes that he needed to give to some students of mine who are transferring over to his class due to a scheduling conflict.

The Home Despot is near his work, and I had to pick up some mulch.

After handing off the sashes, I wandered into the Home Despot and found the piles of cedar mulch. Naturally, the brand I wanted was behind a pile of other stuff, so it was awkward, but I was managing just fine. I was loading the two cu.ft. bags onto a flat-bed push-cart when I heard:

“Hey! Can I give you a hand with that?”

I looked up, and there was a guy with a silver ear-hoop, a buzz cut, and one of the most spectacular tattoos I’ve seen in a while. The tat was a reproduced photograph of a little Chinese kid surrounded by wood grain, and illuminated by gothic script, which I couldn’t read, ‘cause the guy’s arm kept moving while he ignored my assertion that I was doing fine on my own, and pushed past me to begin loading the bags.

“Nice tat”, I said, “Is that of anyone in particular?”

“Yes. It’s a kid I met while I was on a mission trip to China helping out a missionary running an orphanage over there.”

“Oh. He must be pretty special.”

“Yeah, he was. You know, all those kids were damaged some way. I wasn’t comfortable around them. I’m not proud to say it, but I wondered, ‘where are all the normal kids, why can’t I work with them? This kid just came up to me the first day and plopped himself down on my lap, and I was like ‘OK, little dude, you’re cool. He was my little buddy the whole time I was there. I just loved him so much.”

“That’s really great,” I said…figuring the story was over.

He continued, “Before we left, the missionary went through and told me about the kids, told me their stories, and why they were at the orphanage. Then he got to my kid, and told me that he’d been born with both male and female parts. Wow, that was tough, you know, dealing with that. But God had already worked in my heart by that point, and it didn’t matter.”

“That’s a cool story, thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, that’s why the Bible verse here.” He pointed to the script, which I still couldn’t read.

I thought it was a great story. You know, a lot of people don’t believe that they need God to work in their heart to avoid judgment and express compassion for others. But a lot of people do. And my feeling is, if you feel that's what you need to make yourself better personally, you go with your bad self. Do what you have to do, just get there. I don't care if you think you need to wear a watermelon on your head to help you be a better human being. If it works for you, great. I will bring you fresh watermelons every day to help you. Just don't try to force one onto my head, and don't turn the term "watermelonless" into a slur. We'll be cool.

And this man was great, he wasn’t telling me that without religion, I was going to hell. He wasn’t telling me that without religion I’m incapable of love and compassion (or that while I might be able to have love and compassion, it is meaningless without a “foundation”.)

He was telling me about his personal and meaningful story about how he personally won a victory over judgment, narrow-mindedness, and bigotry…and how the reward was a richer, more loving life.

And it made my day, and quite possibly my life better.

(disclaimer: please realize that this conversation is recounted from memory, so the words in quotes are not direct quotes, but my best recollection of the conversation)

Parental braggy-bragging

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:15:12 GMT

We held a fundraiser at my house last night. Just a little get-to-gether to celebrate my friend Sue completing her cancer treatment, and to raise money for our 3-day walk to raise money for research.

In the middle of the chaos, someone asked me, "Is {Grasshopper} your son?"

Me: "Uh....yeah?" (you never sure what you are agreeing to take responsibility for with answering this question)

Lady: "He's soooo sweet! He came to my son and said 'There's nobody downstairs playing video games, would you like to come down and play with me?'"

Me: "Oh. That's nice..." (Not particularly impressed, being a somewhat observant host is the minimum I expect from my kids in a situation like that)

Lady: "And then he turned to me and asked 'What is his rating limit?'"

LOL! Now THAT'S pretty cool!

Radio play test

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:14:08 GMT

Grasshopper has been getting into radio plays, BIG TIME. He's been listening to The Adventures of Ruby over and over again, for instance.

So he wanted to make a radio play, and he and Rocky are putting together some little tests to garner the skills needed. Here is the first test.

Some of you might recognize the voice of the "damsel in distress"...what can I say? A voice actor I'm not. :-)

Montreus.mp3 (353.1 KB)

Growing food crisis.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:35:59 GMT

For those of you who do not know, there is a growing food crisis world wide. The cost of food is going up because the costs of producing processing and delivering it are going up.

What you may not realize is that BEFORE the gas prices really got cooking, and BEFORE the mortgage crisis, the biggest growth of demand for food shelf assistance was in the elderly (medical perscription costs cutting into food budget).

The second largest growth was in was middle class suburban families.

The current statistics say that 50% of the people served by foodshelves are children. The demographic experiencing the largest growth is working families.

One of our favorite places to donate money is the Emergency Food Shelf Network.

I urge you to donate, if you have money that you can donate.

If you need food, and can't afford it...please go to your local food shelf and get some food. Hey, when you get through this rough patch and back on your feet, you can always make a couple of donations, right?

The Howling Cave

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:35:33 GMT

Grasshopper is ten years old.

He has had a series of writing assignments meant to illustrate various grammar concepts. The following is his response to an assignment where he was supposed to use verbs in past, present, and future tense:

The Cave

By [name redacted]

A boy got told by his mother never to go into the Howling Cave, but one day he needed to go. It was just too mysterious. So he went with a little food and water and a flashlight. Later, he didn’t know the way back.

“I don’t think I packed enough food for me to get lost, and I already feel hungry.” He thought.

It was dark in the cave.

“I better turn my flashlight on.”

Then, he saw yellow eyes. They were bats! They started to fly. A few seconds passed, and he realized he could follow the bats out.

He ran after the bats, out of the Howling Cave. When he got home, his mom asked,

“Where have you been?”

He said, “At the park.”

He had mud and scratches all over him.

“Well, clean off for dinner. I will find out where you really were eventually.” His mom said.

The end.

Postcards from the gym.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:32:28 GMT

"Leftovers"

I'm still adjusting to it being spring, with the snow melted and all that. Now I can ride my bike to the gym, or run if I wish. Today I rode my bike, as I had already been out for a long walk with the dog.

So I arrived a the gym and my work-out went really smoothly. I was able to put a lot of explosive power into each lift, and really get the muscles burning. Sometimes I arrive with a sort of lackluster energy level, and can't really shake it. Not today. The muscles were really happy to work, and the burn felt GOOD! In fact, I was completely wrecked by the time I finished my stretches. I was a big pile of goo, ready to go out and get in my car and drive home for a soak and additional stretching in the neighbor's hot-tub (whish we have a standing invitation to use any time we want to, as it is out-of-doors and they're really nice people).

Yep, I'd managed to put everything I had into my work-out, and I felt really good about it. I hadn't held anything back...

...and then I opened the locker and saw the bike helmet there.

Crap.

It was only a mile-and-a-half home, and surprisingly,even though I thought I had nothing left...I made it back.

"I juggle my family" (ten brownie points the the person who gets that referance. Hint: it is said with a crap Russian accent)

Two of my favorite machines are the hip abductor and hip adductor machines. I like to work on explosive power on these machines, keeping the weight down somewhat, and just working on maintaining a fast and powerful, but controlled contraction through the full range of motion. I've found that this has really helped those muscles relax later, when I stretch them, and has helped my flexibility as well as the speed of my kicks. These muscles take a lot of abuse in the martial arts, and isolating them for a little intense, focused work makes them feel really good.

I do 145 lbs on each machine (these machines work both legs at the same time, so it isn't as much as it sounds).

Anyway, I got on the hip abductor the other day, and the weight was set to ninety lbs. I didn't think anything of it, there are a lot of little old ladies at the gym that time of day, and tiny little trophy wives. They use the weight machines, but can't lift very much weight (I routinely find the bench press at 50 lbs).

I rapped off my first set of twenty, and then paused before doing the second set, and realized that the lady on the hip adductor machine next to me was openly staring at me.

I wondered for a minute if there was a green, slobbering space monster behind me or something, but then I realized that the lady had the machine set to 90 LBS. I smiled. She smiled back uncertainly, and then began painfully struggling through another set.

I blew through my second set, and went on to the glute machine to wait for her to be done with the one she was on.

The moral of the story is, apparently, I am very scary to suburban housewives.

"Dirty old men...kind of".

There's this little old lady that I see at the gym sometimes. I'll call her "Carmen". She's in her late '60's and she's just the cutest thing. she wears a pink Nike track suit, and she works out everyday at about the same time. I always enjoy seeing her there, because she's friendly, but I must admit that I get some entertainment at her expense sometimes.

I'm not proud of it, but I think you'll forgive me when I tell you why.

Carmen has replaced much of the subcutaneous fat that we all have when we are younger with a nice layer of muscle. She does a lot of shaping and toning exercises, so that her posture and shape is that of a much younger woman...

...and hence the humor

You will see her working out, and every once in a while you will see an older man here or there who has not encountered Carmen yet, and he will be checking out her butt.

Then, he suddenly realizes that he is checking out the butt of a woman he must imagine is decades younger than himself, and he looks chagrined. Then, he gets a look a Carmen's face and realizes that under that dyed red hair is the face of someone more his age, and then he gets a different expression a "I was checking THAT out?!?" expression...and then he realizes that the old lady he finds so unattractive is his own age, and he gets another facial expression, which is best described as deflated.

Bruised pride is not visible

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:41:43 GMT

Gen. O'Neill: [smugly] My, this is an occasion. You know that bitter taste in your throat? It's kind of wrapped around your uvula? That's what's left of your pride.

--Stargate SG-1

I like to help. So when Eric called and said that he and his friend Chris had removed a wall of his three season porch, and would I like to come over and help move his ginormous hot-tub out through the de-constructed wall, naturally I said "Sure!"

The event started out with the usual planning and plotting and disconnecting and unwiring and lifting and prying, and tweaking and situating...and culminated in a concentrated push across the floor, down a carefully constructed ramp, and onto some improvised skids in the yard.

In between, of course, was the part where we started to push, and got the thing going REALLY well...and my foot slipped in a puddle of water, causing my face to slam chin-first into the edge of the hot-tub.

There is no visible bruising, but the area is quite tender. The tip of my chin and a small, puffy bump on my lip that you can't even see on the outside, but I can feel with my tongue on the inside.

Thank God it didn't get ugly and purple. I teach class tomorrow, and I don't want to scare the parents of the children I teach by showing up with my arms all covered in bruises (most hidden by my shirtsleeves) AND with my face all banged up.

I left them to put the wall back together, and get the space ready to recieve Eric's incredible new piano.

Those asses don't kick themselves, you know.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:25:41 GMT

Had a great time at Kung Fu today. One of the other second degree black belts and I mixed it up with some old-school grappling/strikeing/take-down/groundwork stuff. It was fun.

I got to show off the superior core-lower-body strength of women fighters. Men like to think that they have the upper-hand because of superior upper-body strength, but in the end, all that does is put you at risk for letting yourself get put off balance. Don't get me wrong, upper-body strength is great for climbing trees and chucking spears and stuff, but when it comes to throwing your opponant over your hip, I'll take a nice, low, girlie center of gravity any day.

I also got to show how ~~rabbit punches~~ (sorry, meant rapid punches.)to the body, comined with knees to the solar plexus and elbows to the jaw can short-circuit a lot of standard wrestling moves.

And yes, I pretty much got powned after my opponant drove his shoulder into my chest, and knocked me into the wall. I wasn't even thinking when he went to back off and I put him into an elbow lock, but I didn't hit him.

Normally, I hold back quite a bit because I am sparring lower-ranked people and it is my responsibility to make sure that neither of us gets injured, and to make sure that they improve and learn.

What's great about this, though is that even thought it LOOKED like we should have been completely wrecked after the fight (knees to the solar plexus, elbows to the jaw, trips, throws, etc. - neither one of us had even a minor injury.

I get more bruises from a tepid sparring match with an intermediate student.

I got rocked pretty good when my break-fall didn't completly keep my head from hitting the ground after a leg-trap-take-down, but it cleared right away. No worries.

I'm happy endorphine girl now. It's been a while since baby's been able to play.

International language of peace: Math

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:50:18 GMT

So I am at the Doctor today, waiting to get the anti-biotics that will help me kill the projectile lung crud that always takes over my body this time of year and makes me not able to run. (Point of interest, even with said projectile lung crud, my peak-flow at the athsma Dr. last week was 550, which I damned impressive, if I do say so myself)

Anyway, I got there early because the errends I planned to run on the way didn't take that long.

So I pulled my old Algerba book out of my back-pack and started working some problems. I'm brushing up so I can help Adventure Boy put in some extra study time.

The nice lady in the headscarf across the room, gets up and says "What are you studying, can I see?"

She's all jazzed, "I love Algebra, it is my favorite subject!"

We start working problems together, and I try some Arabic on her. Turns out, she doesn't speak Arabic, so I assume she must be from Iran. I never learned any Farsi.

But we don't get too far when the nurse calls her in for her appointment. :-(

Who knew you could make friends doing Algebra in the doctor's waiting room?

12-steppin.

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:26:00 GMT

It occurs to me that I have not linked to Conrad Zero for a while.

It’s not that he hasn’t had anything worth linking to. After all, I enjoyed his entry entitled “No, I never Slept with Diablo Cody” enough to comment on it.

It’s probably mostly because I am mortified that I am sometimes described as “the first fan of Jagged Spiral who is not married to them or related by blood”. Yet I have not been to a single solitary one of their live performances.

Ever.

Mostly because they keep having them on nights when I have to work, and my husband is out of town, and I’m tired afterwards, and someone has to go home and make sure the kids are still alive and check their homework, and get to bed early enough to wake up at 5:30 AM make them a hot breakfast and get them to school on time.

You would think I’d be able to excuse myself with the above reasons, but I can’t. What kind of “first fan of the band to DEFINE the genre of northern gothic epic rock” begs off because she has to check homework, she’s too tired, and she has to get up early?

But I finally have to admit it. I’m a fraud. Don’t get me wrong, I like their music a lot, and I find their personalities and personal details very fun and compelling, but those are just the beginnings of fandom.

Fan is short for “fanatic”, after all – and a “fanatic” would make it out to a bar on a weeknight and leave the kids a bottle of Jack Daniels and a book of matches to amuse themselves with for another couple of hours.

I DID vote for them numerous times on “Rock the Dash” (and you can too. The Band is Jagged Spiral. The songs are "Let it out" and "Not Enough Bullets" You can vote once per day).

But I’m afraid it’s too little too late.

Well, there. Now THAT’s out of the way. I feel a great sense of relief, and though it was difficult to come to terms with it, I think my energy that was previously directed toward denial will be more useful in overcoming my enduring sense of shame and loss.

And I think I can begin to link to Conrad again from time-to-time. Now seems like a good time.

Conrad has re-defined his war on emo. He now defines it as a war on emo music, not a war on emo kids. Because having a war on emo kids would be lame…and he’s right, of course.

But as someone who has passed difficult passages of time sustained only by The Cure and (naturally) Gary Newman, I really feel that I must speak up in defense of Emo (and yes, Screamo) music.

I’m reminded of a prim little English teacher who once pontificated that vulgarity was the last refuge of the illiterate. In other words, if you couldn’t find words to express yourself appropriately, you resorted to vulgarity. I didn’t raise my hand an point out that there were, in fact situations for which there WAS no appropriate vocabulary except vulgarity. Mostly because I wanted to nip out for a smoke on a pilfered bathroom pass, and figured that calling attention to myself would be strategically counter-productive.

But I have long since stopped smoking, and Conrad can’t send me to the principal’s office, so I’d like to just raise my hand here and say that there are some days where you just can’t find a better way of expressing your feelings than to flop onto the couch and play a ten-minute spot of Bright Eyes…or slip on the gloves and work the heavy bag to a half album of Lincoln Park.

It might not be the best choice, or the socially acceptable choice, but sometimes it’s just plain the only music that does the job.

Sometimes Parenting SUX!

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:00:29 GMT

A couple weeks ago Adventure Boy came home all exceited and happy. His band director had invited him to join the jazz band as a bass guitarist.

He's going to be the next Geddy Lee, you know. Bought himself a guitar, taught himself how to play, practices every day.

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, as I realized that I was going to have to say "no".

Adventure Boy has a B- average. Barely.

He's a Freshman, and he is working hard, but he's just not settled in to the High School academic pace yet. He's taking accellerated classes, and he was in the Winter play, and now he's in the spring play, he's playing tuba in the band and Chamber Winds, he hangs out with his friends a lot playing D and D, doing martial arts, playing basketball, etc.

He's even hoofed it down to the Caribou for a little hanging-out-and-studying-with-the-gang.

He's busy is what I'm saying, and he's treading the soothing waters of average while throwing himself into the whole teenager gig with gusto and positivity.

And that's great and all - but I saw one more activity as the death-knell of his academics. I don't have real high standards when it comes to grades, but this is a kid who COULD get straight "As". And as far as I'm concerned, if he doesn't have a "B" average, he's not making the cut.

Add two hours of jazz band practice per week, and the performance schedule they have...and I can even kiss a "B-" average goodbye.

Not cool.

So I said "no". I explained that extra-curricular activities were "EXTRA-curricular", and that his curricular activities had to come first. If this opportunity arose again later, when he had a solid "B" average, I would say "Yes", but until that happened, he would need that time to focus on his studies.

He looked crushed, but he nodded and said he understood.

And I went upstairs to do dishes, because I figured that if I had to feel like a puppy-kicking monster at least I could also be productive.

Now, lo and behold, the drama club is doing "As you like it" and Adventure Boy has a small role (William, a country fellow), and the director asked if there was anyone who could play an instrument in the play...just be a sort of roving minstral wandering through the scene.

Adventure Boy is going to get to play his guitar after all. :-)

Ping!

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:31:19 GMT

Today, I had a chance to take one little problem off of the top of a big pile of someone else's problems -

and make it disappear.

Poof!

Damn, that feels good!

Why pick on lil ol'me?

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:29:32 GMT

Some of you might have noticed that our server has been up-and-down for the last couple of days. Apparently, I have a zombie army of computers rapidly trying to post pingbacks to my blog, which was over-loading the server.

The attack continues, so I just want you to know what's going on.

It seems very strange that anyone would consider my little blog to be worth the trouble.

OMG My mother has a blog!

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:01:37 GMT

Not really, but this woman appears to be an exact psychological clone of my mother.

http://themakersacres.blogspot.com

It's a little weird.

I found her through a comment she left on Karen's blog.

"Damn environmentalists"

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:18:17 GMT

The other day I was “up nort” for a family event and I witnessed a conversation that went something like this:

Guy 1: “Do you ever see red fox up here?”

Guy 2: “I’ve seen one sometimes.”

Guy 1: “How about wolves?”

Guy 2: “They’re beautiful. They have a beautiful pelt.”

Guy 1: “Can you trap them?”

Guy 2:“Not yet, but we’ll see…depends on the damn environmentalists.”

Guy 3: “If they let us hunt ‘em their populations will probably go up.”

Guy 1: “Yeah.”

Guy 3 :“It’s like the bald eagles. I mean, how many eagles do we need?”

Guy 1: “Keep the roadkill cleaned up good though.”

Guy 3: “Yeah.”

The rewards of lurking near a conversation like this make it worth the effort to not interject your opinion. Even though I grew up in the area, I’d only ever seen one timberwolf, maybe a handful of bald eagles, and never a fox, and never a trumpeter swan.

Now, after numerous environmental protection measures, they are ubiquitous.

Guy three was right, when a certain population level is reached, there’s some scientific indication that controlled hunting will increase the population, as has been the case with the deer population in the area. but he's wrong in implying that hunting in and of itself is automatically a forcer for population growth.

The question is what is the threshold? And no matter what, without the “damn environmentalists” there would be no beautiful wolf pelts to argue about taking or not taking right now.

And yes, I know that if I had pointed that out, the guys would have asserted that the population lows we saw during my childhood were “natural” lows in the populations that would have come back with or without conservation efforts.

However, I think we’ve seen enough evidence to the contrary all over the world where conservation efforts were either never attempted, or were circumvented by market pressure for poaching or habitat destruction.

Another interesting portion of the conversation wandered into the subject of "the damn buck-shooters" and how there weren't very many bucks in the area anymore. It is important to note that the "damn buck shooters" were probably not being complained about because of concern for the effect that a limited number of males might have on the genetic diversity (and therefore health and stability) of the local deer population, but because of resentment for "six-one-tourists" (tourists from the cities...which used to be dominated by the 612 area code) coming up and sniping all the good trophies.

On a personal note, I don't know if I qualify as a "damn buck shooter" or not. I grew up in the area, but now I live in the cities (not the 612 area code anymore, though) and I'll shoot anything tastey that comes across my path, doe, buck or itty-bitty fawn. I hunt to eat, I'm not a trpophy hunter...

...but I have to admit, I was a little proud of the 8-point monster buck I pulled out of the woods a couple of years ago. As a matter of priciple, I don't take trophy photos, but I was tempted that year. Sorely tempted.