This is for Tom
Only Jack.
My brother is a big fan of Jack Nicholson. At least he used to be, and I haven’t heard otherwise…so this post is just for him.
I’m not a great lover of “The Jack”, but you got to give it to him here. Only Jack Nicholson could be floating around in the ocean, getting ready to snorkel, but take a time out to smoke a cigarette. In the ocean. In the water. Not, before he gets in the water, but actually IN the water.
The picture is from D-Listed. Link there (for the actual post by Michael K–adult content) with alot more pictures of Jack-in-the-ocean and on a boat and on land, I think, or to the right in my blogroll, for the general site. (Come on Tom, you know you want to—tips for the future Uncle Tom, that the kids like to visit because he’s bat-shit crazy and a whole lot of fun?!?!?)
Just to be clear about what I am saying (with no sarcasm): Jack is so cool he smokes AND swims AT THE SAME TIME!! Now, who could ever be slicker than that??
Tom, your idol was chosen wisely. Love, Sistah #1.
Ugh! I did it again! And now I’m going to suck you in too…
More pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie taking their kids to McDonald’s. Again! Can you believe it?? They are just like us regular people. They probably have someone who cooks for them, but they’re driving home, the kids are whining about being hungry, and everyone pretty much loves McDonald’s. So fast. So convenient. So tasty. Relatively cheap. It’s America, you know??
And once again, I looked at all the pictures. You can barely see in, the kids are kind of shadowy in the back. Pathetic. I just love to waste time when I can. This was on a different site though. PopSugar. Click the link and you can go there too!
I only took one picture from the site. I think you can get the idea without me having to post everything. I didn’t see a credit for the pics anywhere, but visit the site in case you want to know!
And since we are doing spiders…
Today’s Big Bug is a BIG spider! If it looks impressive to you in these photos, it was even better close up! Creepy-crawly!
But stay tuned here in the next few days because the artist did ants too. Giant, sprawling-across-the-grass, ants. Ants are my biggest bug problem. Spiders are pretty scary too, check out this dedication post to a brave but crazy spider that was living in our house, but ants are the ones that get me rolling.
Not to go off subject, but we live on a slab foundation, and as anyone who may live on one knows, ants love to live in the cracks underneath the house. Except in winter or rainy times when they like to migrate indoors, say onto your living room floor or bedroom or closet or tables or kitchen or anywhere they can crawl their teeny-tiny bodies around too. These are a particular kind of ant, slab ants. They’re small, really small, but they can get everywhere fast and before-you-know-it. You can just be sitting on a chair when you suddenly notice a small movement on the floor or near a wall, and you go to take a close look…OMG! Seriously, there could be like a hundred, in a trail with that one crumb of food the vacuum didn’t get. It sucks, and it sucks worse when you have small children who like to crawl around on the floor but now you don’t even want them to walk on it because an ant might crawl on them. Yuk yuk yuk! Thankfully there are awesome exterminators who will come and eliminate the problem for you! We found a great one and the ants only make a minor appearance, maybe, once every few years now. It’s lovely. Plus it makes you vacuum a whole lot more, and who doesn’t like to be forced to keep their house clean so vermin doesn’t set up camp?? Not me!
Anyway…here’s the spider:
After yesterday’s bike ride the last thing I want to do is sit on something hard (!?!) Like a bench…?? (Sick)
Before I go on and on about what we did yesterday—bike riding adventure—you will be impressed…here is another bench from beautiful, downtown, Tinley Park! The theme is…
Superheroes! Or Spider-Man at least! Peter Parker!
I don't remember Spider-Man fighting these horrible creatures but I never read the comics. That green lizard guy is a mystery too!
Is there something crawling on me??
This is one year ago. Stevie and Elexa. Looking young.
Mason and Stevie, with Ethen, who strangely, still looks the same! We were unable to get all four kids together at this point.
Just mine this time. (My kids like to look at themselves in pictures.) They're both many inches taller now.
Bench of Mystery…
I’m not really sure what this is. I know it’s an old TV Show (?) I think a kids show for the older folks before they had cool computers and stuff. It kind of looks like Mister Roger’s Neighborhood puppets. The ones in the land of make-believe. That witch/crone looks familiar. There was a description plate on all the benches but I didn’t think to take those pictures or even write them down for reference later. Sloppy research. I welcome any and all lessons for my edumacation.
Bench WITH extra-added hideous crone.
Bench WITHOUT.
Where the trail starts. Very pretty, by a fishing lake. My favorite part of the picture is the garbage can I managed to get in the corner. I could have cropped it out, but I like it; Adds depth and perspective.
Don’t Read TIME Magazine!!
Or NewsWeek, or any of the other kind of magazines that make you think about the world and problems and issues and things that are important to life and living here in America and on Earth. If you do, you will only be sorry. Like me.
I feel bad because I did read the TIME magazine this morning, BB (Before Burrito’s) and before Bike Riding, and it makes the silly stuff I talk about all day seem kind of lame. I should have a point or a view and opinions and controversy. But I don’t. I have ideas. But then I see a colorful bird in a tree or a strange frog on the sidewalk and I forget all about deeper issues.
I really do have a master plan, and I do have some really good life improving ideas, but I need to get through school first so I can start earning the kind of money and hooking up with the right kind of connections to put things in place. Plus, I have to get my kids up and ready for high school. That’s their first step toward all of the rest of the education they are going to be required to have to make any kind of difference in this world.
I bring it up now, because I am going to be posting stuff that I get from the “smart” mags along with the usual crap I get from the internet and the gossip mags my brain absorbs like a dried up jellyfish. Plus, I may be suffering some kind of post-exercise-nature-beauty-world-love withdrawal, as the coffee and vodka (not together) courses back into my veins and displaces all the healthy-oxygen-clean-pure-blood, but it takes time!
And! I have some International New Features I want to post! The BF’s good friend from work just moved to Germany with her hubby and sent an e-mail and photo’s that are absolutely out of this world, funny and brilliant and real-world people perspective of other places on the globe. And she said I could post it all here!
For now though, here’s my stuff: We rode those bikes, in the rain (it stopped now and then) for 19.2 miles! Once we got out there the actual trail was a bit longer. Took us One hour and 45 minutes. Not bad for ups/downs/traffic/road crossings/the requisite work phone call (BF is on the job) and a stop to take a picture of an old cemetery that was there in the early 1900’s. The sign explains it, but the Forest Preserve acquired the land with the cemetery on it and chose to keep it as it was. History and all. Now you can say the site is educational and we can both feel better.
There were power lines too! Giant, humming, massive towers that were really crackling in the rain. I was so in awe of being that close and riding underneath all of them that I forgot to take any pictures. It’s probably good anyway. I would have pulled my phone out, aimed it up at the wires and got electrocuted when an arc of electricity shot out and grabbed the cell killing me on the spot. That would have sucked.
See? No sense of world. Ooooh…power lines. Electricity. Well, without it, we couldn’t type or read this, so….it needs to propped!
Anyway, if we go back tomorrow—which I’d like to—I will get those pics. It is pretty amazing. I know people that live by them don’t necessarily think so, but I don’t have my brains getting fried on a day-to-day basis…or…?? Just kidding. Seriously. I don’t really think brains are getting fried just because of power lines. You don’t need to live by the high wire to get the high if you know what I mean.
Also, in case you were wondering, I think I successfully burned off all the cals from those terrible, but delicious burrito’s. I checked the internet for an exercise calculator and it says I did. Now, what’s for dinner? Let me finish my vodka lemonade and think about it while you look at pictures of headstones and a sign.
Riding in the Rain
So the BF has mapped out a very long 15 mile + trail for us to bike ride on. He has the bike rack on the back of the car. The bikes are ready, with proper tire air and water bottle holders secured. His mileage counter/techy gadget is calibrated and standing by. We are wearing our finest bicycle shorts/racing peddle shoes/tight, wicking t-shirts/fast helmet/goggle combos; aka Lance Armstrong and Co. (Just kidding about the clothes–we live in the suburbs. Of Chicago. We could get our asses kicked riding around town looking like space alien freaks.)
As you may recall, and I see that I typed it last night, I was going running today. 4 miles plus. Which I may do after this “bike ride” the BF wants to do. Our only problem here at the moment is the giant mass of thunderstorms and rain clouds moving across the area this very minute. I have a few choices here.
Just go ride the bikes. It’s chilly and rainy but at least I’ll be moving(??).
Then go run on the trail, after. 3.6 miles will seem so easy then.
Go to the gym. Indoors. Always temperature and weather controlled. (Poop)
Or…STOP eating.
But, since I already devoured 4, yes (shame) four, McDonald’s Breakfast Burrito’s with Hot Picante, while watching Grease 2 (double shame) this morning, it’s probably too late for that option.
My favorite alternative option, since it feels kind of like New Orleans out there; breezy, rainy, Southern tropical; I say we make Hurricanes and sit out on the veranda and drink all day. (We don’t actually have a veranda, but we do have a patio with some very nice plastic Adirondack chairs and a backyard full of grass to look at.) It’s close enough.
And I can’t seem to waste any more time with this post, as I’ve run out of things to embarass myself with. I will be back, much later, with my regular schedule of things you don’t care about.
I have to go lose some calories and be a part of society now.
Last post of the night…
Hold on, let me get a drink for this….
Ok. If you read this in any kind of dailyway, I pretty much list off my activities for the day. So, even though I had good intentions when I woke up this morning (early , so that I could watch the WGN Morning News—I even texted what kind of underwear Pat Tomasulo should wear to co-host his first Regis & Kelly Show on Tuesday—sad), basically I did nothing. The road to Hell…
Drank coffee. Bitched and moaned when I had to take the car to the brake shop, which we desperately needed. Grumped about having to go buy windows and stain and rocks for the house to make it look nicer. Hated the lunch I ate, even though I picked the place. Was bored at the Pet Store getting feeders for the cannibal Oscars (which are getting big–I’m going to do a before and after post when I sober up in the morning because I’ll never find the old pictures in this condition). Sat inside and played BeJeweled on the computer and Facebook while the BF cleaned off the roof, gutters and patio in the blazing midday sun. Perked up a little when we had to go get the car, brand new brakes—so nice!–only because I knew we had to go right past a liquor store! Yay! Happily walked around said liquor store picking up various drink items for tonight and tomorrow. Drove car home thinking about making delicious martini’s and laying across the couch like a lump. Sitting here, right now, drinking second martini and typing about the things that I won’t be finishing up tonight. Like…
The laundry.
The kids room. So close too! Got it painted and ready to re-build. Got proof too! See pics below! I was going to save them for the big before and after unveiling, but who am I kidding?? I might not even finish that room now until Sunday or Monday. HA. All I have to do is hang curtains and move the furniture back. Oh Cursed Vodka!!
Another thing I didn’t do was run. And I feel bad about that. It’s been 2 days; three when I wake up tomorrow. (I did paint for those two days—today was just pure lazy) It’s going to suck running around out there for 4 miles, maybe more, as punishment, with a hangover and reeking of booze sweat but I can’t get behind. I have a five mile race in one month and you saw those butt pictures. Eee-yew…did any one else just feel a chill?? Goosebumps. Or giant lumps (of fat in my pants—yuck). I’m not even telling you where those pictures are or linking it. Find it yourself.
What I am going to do though, is finish this up, post those pictures (the walls and windows really did turn out nice–good work SoberLisa!) and make some moves on my BF. (Too much information???)
Like Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, once said (and she totally rocks):
“One drink makes me want to go to bed.
Two drinks makes me want to go to YOUR bed.”
Goodnight, Chicagago!
just shy of pretty 