Momnesia

Alice: So what are you doing this weekend?
Me: Going to the mountains with my sister.
Alice: Oh, that's right, the kayaking trip.
Me: I'm so excited!
Alice: You've been going a lot lately. Be careful; you're just one trip away from a Life is Good T-shirt.

It's like cowboys, in space!

Susy: "I can't believe you've never seen 'Firefly.' You have to watch it. Then you'll be furious at Fox for cancelling it, too."

Me: "What's it about?"

Susy: "It's like Han Solo."

Allison: "But better."

Me: "What? How dare you!"

Trey: "But the writing is better than George Lucas."

Susy: "Watch it. Then you can be angry with Fox for cancelling it... and the jokes are good!"

Allison: "Clever."

Trey: "Smart."

Me: "Clever and smart? That doesn't sound like Fox."

Trey: "Yeah, that's probably why it got cancelled."

But not like these cowboys in space.

AUGUSTA, GA. - So, I won a turkey from the Ft Gordon MWR Gobble Gobble Giveaway, and I'm stupid excited about it.

"Hey, did I tell y'all that I won a turkey?" I asked.
"Yeeeesssss," my co-workers moaned, nonplussed.

Aw, screw y'all.

"What kind of turkey is it?" asked the fourth-grade daughter of a co-worker.
"Um, the turkey kind?"
"A live turkey?"
"Yeah, a live turkey. I get to murder it myself."
"Really?"
"No. It's a frozen turkey. Pre-murdered."

"How did they murder it?"
"Um... I don't know. I didn't major in Turkey Murder."
"Did they stab it in the head?"
"Uh..."
"And pull its brain out?"
"Uh..."


I don't know. But that's a disturbing question from a 9-year-old (oh, excuse me: "But 10 in May).

AUGUSTA, GA - Vacations to Remember: Can't believe there was no "Best Vacation Planner" in the Spirit survey!

Each line is from a FB friend's update...

Kiss is everywhere
All does not seem well
The Sonoran Hotdog crosses the border
Today is so beautiful!
Oh how I Wish, wish, wish...
But the dust has settled.

H.O.: "Is this ad a pick-up or something new?"
B.O.: "Get off my ass!"
H.O.: "Shut up!"
Me: "I love you guys."

"How did I know that was you calling me?" I asked my friend, A.C.

"I would have called you immediately, but I was having my hoo-ha examined," she answered.

"Nice. Good morning, Stacey. Let's talk about my hoo-ha," I laughed. "So how is it this morning?"

"About 75% effaced, and a fingertip dilated," she moaned.

"What, that's like... 3 centimeters?"

"No! It's not even 1 centimeter!"

"Yuhuh!" I turn to my co-worker, A.C.2, and hold up my finger. "Isn't that more than a centimeter?"

"I don't know how much a centimeter is," she answered.

"What - didn't you go to elementary school?"

"Do you know how long it's been since I went to elementary school? We didn't have the metric system back then," A.C.2 scoffs.

A.C. guffaws on the phone: "Did she just say they didn't have the metric system?"

"Yeah, back when they were carving the system out in rocks, A.C.2 was graduating Georgia Southern with the other cave people," I laughed.

A.C. and I are riding to work together, past MCG on 13th Street.

"Wow, what's up with all the golf carts?" she exclaims.
"Where?"
"I just didn't expect to see 10 golf carts running down the sidewalk this morning," she laughs.
"Where?"
She points. I only see one.
"I only see one."
"There's another one back there," she gestures behind us.
...
"Um, that's only two."
"Yeah, I was rounding up."

AUGUSTA, GA. - The sales and the marketing managers at Augusta Harley-Davidson are like brother and sister, constantly teasing each other. It's like watching Chris Farley and David Spade go at each other. You can tell the affection abounds; they're just playing off each other for entertainment.

Every week, they change their ad so that sales manager "Tommy says" and marketing manager "Donna says" something new. This week one didn't have that much to say.

Me: "Donna says a lot more than Tommy says."
Tommy: "Yeah, Donna's got a big mouth."
Donna: "Donna's smarter than Tommy."

I don't have a Facebook or myspace account - well... actually, I do, but I forgot the passwords and the old e-mail accounts I used aren't active anymore, so basically there are some dead pages all about me just hanging out in cyberspace all lonely. I just find the sites clunky and slow, and I absolutely hate the load-time some of the amateurish page designs suck out of my computer. I have to sit and stare at the spinning pinwheel of death so that your sad obsession with World of Warcraft or Lara Croft Tomb Raider can load in all of its high-resolution glory?!

Anyway. If one day I decide to use the dreaded social networking sites again, it will be with the help of some of the new streamlining companion applications that have been released. For example, there's an app called Festoon. While you browse the web using Firefox, you can easily access other pages and discussions posted by all 23,761 of your online "friends" related to the topic of the page you are viewing. It does require a Facebook account and the Firefox browser - but if you're still using Explorer, you're not on my friends list anyway.

Hey, Joe White, it was nice to see you at the White's Building today! It made me happy, and I'm sorry for the Kid n' Play reference. But, really, the flat top... I'll admit it was poor planning for to have worn a sweater in the middle of an Augusta summer day, but at least I wore a sweater from the 00's, and not hair from the Cosby show. It makes me think you inspired this scene with Jean Claude van Damme. Happy viewing.

more graph humor and song chart memes

AUGUSTA, GA. - I can't remember what a "normal" Saturday night is like. Dinner and a movie? Videos and popcorn? Snuggling in with books and conversation? I don't think I've done any of those things in years. Usually I get Emmie into bed after a long day of parks and such, then crawl into my jammies and curl up with a book, only to fall asleep 15 minutes later. Cause I'm a rock star.

Saturday night was no exception. The one time Scott and I have adult plans - dinner with the Cheeks at their home in North Augusta - there is drama.

"Dinner's ready," Terri calls, and we go out onto the front porch to retrieve the smokers.
"Look at that!" Andy points. It's a blue and white hot air balloon, and it's coming down fast. "There's nowhere for them to land," he worries, and takes off running across yards to see if he can figure out where they're going.

"There's not a field there or something?" I call.
"No. That's all forest," he shouts back.

They're landing, but in the middle of the woods? We figure it has something to do with the thunderheads massing above us.

"Honey, shouldn't you call public safety?" I ask Scott. He is visibly reluctant. But the balloon goes down so he calls. There's no way for us to get to them, and we don't see a fireball or hear screaming, so we leave it to the pros.

Then, Terri spots a red and yellow balloon less than a quarter of a mile away: "God, there's no way they're going to make it," she exclaims.

The balloon drops, hovers, is buffeted by rising winds, and drops again. They're down, and it doesn't look good. She and her mom, Eileen, and I take off after it. Andy steps inside to grab a camera and call the police. Eileen's still carrying her glass of Pinot Grigio. She stops to down it and tosses the glass in the bushes as we cackle hilariously.

We round the corner into the next neighborhood and there it is: a fully inflated hot air balloon resting perfectly at the intersection in a quiet little neighborhood in North Augusta. A corp of workers has already surrounded it, some wearing t-shirts that say "Chase Crew" on the back. They tell us that they had taken off from Hammonds Ferry when rain began coming in from the West.

"You can't fly a balloon in the rain," one of the workers drawls.

In less than 10 minutes, they have the entire structure down, deflated, and packed in a bag not much larger than a suitcase. Terri helps them by sitting on it. I borrow a camera from some teenagers in a truck and snap photos. If "Sutton" e-mails them to me, I'll post them. But she hasn't yet.

It was pretty incredible. A pinpoint landing in rough weather, backed up by carefully coordinated spotters in radio contact. They knew the other balloon was down, and a team was helping them, too.

By the time we got back to eat Terri's delicious salmon - retrieving Eileen's discarded wine glass along the way - the food was cold. Delicious, but stone cold.

It was worth it.

AUGUSTA, GA. - From a friend, Randy Potter, who took his girlfriend on a ride on the new S.S. Patriot Savannah River sunset river cruise on Saturday night.

"It was very nice . . . Its twenty buck$ per scalawag for the two hour "sunset cruise" up and down and then back to Tenth St. / Marriott.

Karen and I, we copped a spot on the bow right away where we weren't under cover or directly subject to the albeit informative narrative provided by the affable first mate. We'd brought along a bottle of wine and a phat nosh and that was nice.

The Patriot is a triple pontoon , tri-hulled vessel of short draft with nice, quiet Honda outboards that served a decade in Boston Harbor. It began river/tour service here in March. It's 61 feet, about 13 feet in the beam.

Anyways, it went upstream as far as the fall line, about at Hammond Hills on the Carolina side (boy, they've built some nice homes along there ) and downstream a mile or so short of the Beech Island bridge / Bricker Farms krapsite.

I thought we'd go as far down as the controversial airport lock & dam. I was kinda disappointed about that. I wanted to see that from the water. Weather and sunset were perfect though.

AUGUSTA, GA. - T.G. comes by with a bag: "You can have any of these you want."
"AHH! What the hell are those? Loofahs?"
"Nooo..." he says.
A.C. peeks in: "Are those the morels?"**
"Yeah."
"Wait!" I remember something Paul Pearman said this morning. "Are those mushrooms?"
"Yeah," T.G. replies, amused at my terror.
A.C.: "And they're from Paul Pearman."
"Oh, I wouldn't eat those, T.G.," I warn. "Unless you have 12 hours to recover."


** Check out the classy animation on that link.

A.C.: I was going to forward this to everyone on staff, but I thought she might get mad at me.
Me: No problem. I'll take care of it.

In full swing: I guess local restaurants made all the money they needed on Valentine’s Day. By Saturday, they were all tuckered out, as we discovered when a friend who ranks highly at the state’s largest business magazine came to visit.

After rejecting TakoSushi because the wait was too long, we headed downtown. We should have headed to Washington Road. Asking to be seated after 9 p.m., but long before 10 p.m., at three restaurants - Blue Sky Kitchen, Nacho Mama's and The Boll Weevil - was akin to asking for a free meal. Two places refused to seat anyone else, and one offered us only dessert menus.

It didn’t seem an unreasonable time frame to us — about what you’d get if you went to a 7 p.m. movie and then headed to dinner. What do you think?

We ended up at IHOP at 10:15, starving and pissed, dragging our 3-year-old with us at a time we always swore we never would. It's nearly 2 hours past her bedtime. But we required certain considerations for our friend, who is a vegetarian with food allergies, and I thought IHOP, having such a diverse menu, could meet them.

AUGUSTA, GA. - Professor Steven Clements and the students at Augusta State University are delighted to present the short but excellent Monday Night Film Series for spring.

"Guantanamera,” a Spanish language film from Cuba, opens the series on Monday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. in University Hall, Room 170. After a world famous diva dies, her family must accompany the casket on an absurd journey to the funeral, accompanied by a pair of truck drivers. The truckers and the mourners inspire new love in each other. This is a colorful, dark comedy, equal parts romantic comedy and critique of the crumbling Communist political system.

Here is what critics have said about the film:

• "Funny, rueful, infinitely moving, 'Guantanamera!' does not take its leave without a lovely touch of magic realism."—Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
• "'Guantanamera' celebrates Cuban paradoxes in a cheeky little comedy about two romances that endure through the years."—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
• "In essence, 'Guantanamera!' is a love story. But what sets it apart from most glossy Hollywood romances is the depth and the range of its plot. Written by Alea and Tabio with Eliseo Alberto Diego, the film is a thoughtfully woven quilt of life-altering and life-affirming situations."—Maria Tarradell, Dallas Morning News

On March 3, ASU will present Marion Cotillard portraying famed French singer Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” for which she has received an Academy Award nomination.


On March 10 ASU will look at gender discrimination in Iran through the film “Offside,” which was filmed without the knowledge of the Iranian government.