How did my family celebrate Marting Luther King, Jr. day yesterday???

Bowling, of course!!!!

Since hubby and kiddo were off we hit the lanes and, unlike past ventures to our local alley, this time I bowled, as well. (Previous trips were when I was pregnant and thus hurtling an 11 lb. ball at breakneck speeds was a no-no for me.)

Can I just say, that for a first time out there I KICKED ASS?!?!

My high score was a respectable 121. And that was with a house ball and rented shoes. I think it helped a great deal that the particular alley we attend plays the most excellent 80's pop/new wave music selelction over their top notch sound system. I must note that I had lousy throws during Cover Girls and Bryan Adams tunes but slammed some strikes home while WHAM!, Depeche (com-)Mode, and, bizzarrely enough, Kenny Loggins hits pulsed in the background. I'm thinking that the Loggins strike was either a fluke or my ensuing disgust revved up my adrenalin level to help get that ball flyin' down the lane at 20 m.p.h. Highway To The Danger Zone, indeed.

Our "senior citizen" of the family, Buster, age 15, (73 in human years) has been patiently dealing with the antics of kitten Percy, now 10 months old, since he joined our family in April.

They are ridiculously cute, snuggling in their over-crowded cat bed each afternoon and sometimes taking the time to groom each other about the ears and such, which, from what I understand of cat behavior, indicates true familial affection not offered to any ole' feline.

Here's a pic of them "then" (April 2005):

...and now (January 2006)

...apparently, I'm not a nerd (see score, below)

> 

Thanks to Tammy for leading me to this quiz/affirmation. I'd love to see my husband's score. He's an Electrical Engineer by education; an electronics hobbyist by choice. Yes, I got him a much-appreciated Radio Shack gift card for Christmas! I suspect he'd be off the charts.

Friday night, my family and I settled into our subterannean quarters (read: basement family room) and enjoyed Star Wars: Episode IV (Yeah, the first one) on DVD. I spied it that afternoon at the library while skulking about the shelves seeking a family-friendly-but-not-too-"kiddie" vid for us to watch over the weekend. Although hubby and I enjoyed reliving our favorite Lucasfilm moments, my 6-year old seems underwhelmed.

After the screening, we meandered up to the kitchen, put kiddo to bed, and hubby and I cleaned up a bit and continued chatting about our sci-fi adventure of the evening. All of a sudden, a mechanical noise blasted out from the stairs below the kitchen.

"What was that?!" questioned hubby, seemingly alarmed.

"Oh, its the litter box."

At this point I need to inform you, gentle readers, that we have not one but TWO of the latest in Feline Waste Management Technology gracing our home. After our automated "Littermaid" gave out, I purchsed two Stylette Littersweep machines to keep the Kitty Krap under Kontrol. (Click the link to fully partake of the hilarity of this item.)

I continued the conversation, segueing in with the Star Wars chatter.

"So, you see, its like we have our own little robots!

"Yeah, R2D2," noted hubby.

I corrected him. "Uh, more like R2 Pee Poo!"

Today I tried a new recipe for my breakfast. Well, not so much a recipe as a technique to produce a dish I usually only eat in brunchy-type restaurants. I learned the following valueable information the hard way:

The correct tool for this job is a large slotted spoon, NOT a spatula.

And with that, I exit stage left, uttering the following:

Ghostly, shivering
Sloshed upon some buttered toast
I am a poached egg

Last week in my parish's bulletin, there was a notice for a vigil to commemorate the Roe Vs. Wade decision. I thought about how much attention the abortion issue gets from so-called "Pro LIfe" people, and yet rarely, if ever, do the numbers of fervent activists address the issue of Capital Punishment. Then I got angry, thinking about people like "W" calling himself Pro-life and "born-again Christian" when during his reign as Texas Governor he thew the switch on over 150 people, inclung the infamous case of fellow "born again," Karla Faye Tucker.

Coincidentally, that evening, I returned home to find that my husband had borrowed a copy of the excellent documentary, Deadline from our local library. The film is so succinct and eloquent in the points it aims to make that I need not waste my jumble of words (nor the bandwidth) to reiterate them here.

To me, one of the most moving parts of the film were statements read by family members of homicide victims who, despite their sorrow and loss, oppose the death penalty. I thought about my own desire to learn to implement this outlook in small ways in my own life.

I'm no pushover. If, even after walking away from a bully, that bully keeps pushing me, I push back. And yet, I have also learned over the past few years that when someone hurts you, really HURTS you, gossip, over-analyzing or even revenge provide no healing, no "closure." Walking away, putting that person/situation and the corresponding negative energy as far away as possible - THAT is what sustains me when I'm am heading toward anger, resentment, jealousy, etc.

Not long ago, a stressful situation would lead me down a road mixed with positive energy (my intact self-esteem) and negative. In one situation I purveyed gossip, cursing, declarations of severe dislike - all of this about some bad driver who cut me off in the school parking lot! Now, if its humanly possible to decline the Ultimate Revenge for the murder of a family member, then maybe there's hope for us road ragers out there. I've been pretty good about "forgiving" or at least "ignoring" some utterly crapulent driving I've seen in the past few months. Sadly for us law-abiding defensive drivers out there, I seem to have to remind myself to "let it go" and not allow the expletives to come streaming out of my mouth, audibly polluting the confines of my '98 Taurus. In '05 I was amazed at my declining rate of car-cussing; maybe one of my '06 goals could be to sustain and perhaps improve upon my track record.

This year, I think I'm already moving in the direction I want to be heading...I started SLOWLY getting back to excercise months ago, and unfortunately, due to my back injury, I'm hampered in getting too aggressive on that front. But that's ok.

Other than that, I think my spending, organizing, housecleaning, meal-planning/eating, and not-yelling-at-my-family-too-much habits are going along quite well.

I also think, however, that I will NOT be entering any triathlons this year. I just want to stay away from any self-induced guilt/pressure/stress for hardcore training when I need to focus on NOT working out until my back is 100%. Not to mention that yet again there is NO room in our household budget for a proper racing bike (not even a USED one!) I'm just going to keep my pre-pregnancy size as my carrot-on-a-stick goal to reach. And I will take as long as I need to to reach it.

So...

Here's an anecdote to add a little snicker to your day:

Around 6am this morning, uncustomarily early for me, I was feeling a bit amorous and so I snuggled up to hubby looking for some lovin'. As the good times commenced, Annie, the beagle, jumped up and began barking - also unsually early, as she almost always sleeps until 10 am. Sensing her urgent need to go out to pee, I interrupted the marital proceedings, jumped out of bed, threw on a bathrobe and some boots (its darn muddy outside) and took her out for a squirt. She took care of business, we came back inthe house and I got back into bed.

Not long after the after-glow, I heard a tell-tale "squishing" noise. The g*ddamn dog was squatting on my NEW carpet and delivering a payload of extra-steamy diarrhea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, I began cleanup immediately with RESOLVE cleaner, wet sponge, scrub brush, a roll of paper towels, a big garbage can and a very bad post-coital/pre-morning-cup-of-coffee attitude.

Despite the scrubbing and blotting of said stain,I could still tell where the schmears were on the rug so I went up into the attic to retrieve a long-forgotten Bissell canister power-steamer. Thanks to more RESOLVE, hot water, scrubbing and "extracting" of brown water via the Bissell, the stains are now gone (lucky for the dog.)

Ain't nothing more romantic than poop in the morning...

As this is the week when many people take Christmas cookies to work, cookie exchange parties, or give them as gifts to neighbors and friends, I thought I'd share a recipe that allows for MANY variations. It has come in very handy this season and I've given them as gifts (in nice holiday-themed gift bags) to my duagher's teacher, ccd instructor, school bus driver and babysitter. Hubby has taken many batches of these cookies to work for his staff, and they have been well-received.

Today was my follow-up visit with the Gastroenterologist - who came up with a gameplan to care for my various aches and pains (back, ibs) while protecting my stomach from painkillers and my colon from narcotics.

So here's the plan:

• One daily Prevacid pill (proton pump inhibitor to protect the tummy from the effects of Ibuprofen)
• Two daily Zelnorm tablets
• Three daily Xanax as needed for IBS-related pain (to "take the edge off" as he said and to literally relax my GI tract)
• 800mg Ibuprofen for back pain

...and a Partridge in a pear tree!