My invitation must have got lost in the mail.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I skipped work and hosted, along with my sisters, a royal wedding party, complete with fancy hats and crumpets.  (For the record, crumpets are just sort of mediocre.  They're a cross between pancakes and English muffins, both of which are superior.)  I've heard several commentaries on how the royal wedding is a waste of time and not worth all the attention it is getting. And to that I say, Oh, lighten up you big fat crank.  Because what is not to love about a royal wedding?  There's pomp and tradition and the Arch Bishop of Canterbury (did you SEE his eyebrows?!).  And there are gilded carriages and wee little flower girls and David Beckham in a morning suit looking dreamy.  And do I even have to mention the Queen?  No, I don't.  Because my general rule is:  Where the Queen goes, so go I.  And if the Queen is going to be at a wedding that will be televised (and can be recorded so I don't have to wake up at 2 am), I'm going to watch it.

Fortunately, I don't have cranky friends.  In fact, I have the opposite.  I have friends who not only wanted to come to the party but gave their full support by wearing fabulous hats and squealing when Kate stepped out of the car.

Speaking of hats:  I'm going to quit my job and move to England and become a milliner.  Because, folks, I have found my calling.  We needed fancy hats so I spent the better part of last night making them for myself, Mom, and Lindsay and then this morning I threw one together for Camille.  And much to my surprise they all turned out very large and over-the-top and also, awesome. Katie could also go into the biz because she pulled off a rather fabulous floral number.  This is what comes of having felt, tulle, a glue gun and a dream. 

Roll the highlight reel:

Camille, with a bird in her hair.



Susan, recognizing the occasion called for a crown



Jenny brought this cake.  We later celebrated the event by eating their faces.

The Spread.  At one point Laura leaned over to me and said, "I like that all of our brunch food can be considered a dessert.  This means the party is a success."  Agreed.

Lindsay managed to make it through the day without gouging anyone's eye out with those curly bits.

We agreed that Jenny could pull this hat off at church.

I might not be so lucky.  But that did not stop me from wearing it the entire day, long after everyone left.  I want to wear this hat to the grocery store, to the bank, while I'm doing my laundry.  I feel sparkly and triumphant in it.

This hat that Laura is wearing is from the actual milliner that Diana used!!!

When Katie put on those white bobbly beads I gasped.  Genius!

Very Grace Kelly, Liz

Heather arrived looking like she just stepped off the train at Kings Cross in 1952.

Holly skipped part of her planned trip to Disneyland to be with us.  That girl's got her priorities straight.

Lindsay made this hat and I'm pretty sure she needs to be my business partner when I open my hat shop

Cute, right?

We stood during the processional.  Naturally.

The One Butt Kitchen

Katie and I call our kitchen a One Butt Kitchen because that's about all it has room for.  We cannot open the refrigerator and the dishwasher at the same time.  In fact, in order to open the dishwasher we have to move the trashcan.  It is wee.  But even though it is the clown car of kitchens it does have some magic.  Namely, two ovens.  Yep.  Two people can barely fit in there, but two ovens?  Bingo!

Both ovens came in handy on Saturday when we had to bake for both Easter and a dessert auction our ward was having that night to raise money for youth camps.  We were up to our eyeballs in baked goods.  Between the two of us we made a german chocolate cake, a strawberry cream cake, a chocolate peanut butter pie, a chocolate bundt cake (which was named Too Much Chocolate Cake - as if) and banana nut bread.

Katie's - natch.  They're the pretty ones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The banana bread wasn't for anything in particular - we just had rotting bananas and also, this is not our first dessert auction.  I have found that when we spend all day baking only to come home without anything I get a little punchy.  The banana bread was preemptive.

 

Later that night, to celebrate the success of the auction, we decorated eggs:

 

And then rolled around in all the money that was brought in. 

Not true - Katie just counted it.  And we marvelled once again at how generous and awesome our ward is.

I'm going to wash that dry shampoo right outta my hair.

How often do you wash your hair?  I wash mine every other day because if I go any longer than that I start to look like I style with Crisco.  So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that there are women out there who go anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months without shampooing.  I think there is only one thing to say to that:  KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS!  Okay, and a few other things such as:  How?  And Why?  And Gross!  They claim that if you rinse it regularly (like, ever few days or so) and use a dry shampoo or corn starch you can go indefinitely without washing.  I actually use the corn starch trick on my non-washing days and even then by the end of the day I could (as my dad puts it) butter toast with my hair.  I am completely mystified.

The real question is how do they do it all without opposable thumbs?

To practice my writing skills I sit down most nights, pick out a writing prompt from a collection I have and type up a paragraph or two with the hopes that something will spark.  This forces me to write fiction because like all people who fiddle around with writing I have dreams of one day traveling to a remote cabin in the wilderness with no tv, internet or Tyra Banks, strapping myself to a chair and willing myself to write a novel.  Why a novel, you ask?  Because I am currently annoyed with this whole memoirs trend that is happening right now.  Holy Cats, there are a lot of memoirs in the bookstores.  Every newspaper book section I read has twice as many memoirs as novels and most of those are written by kids in their 20s.  I don't know that I want to read the life story of someone who can barely remember a time before Facebook.

Looking over these bits that I have written I've noticed a familiar devise - I write about animals acting human.  Not animals who can talk but still act like animals*, but animals who have BBQs and pay taxes.  Like the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Gosh, that was a cool movie.  So as I was noting that I keep going back to this it dawned on me that I've been doing it for decades - going all the way back to my earliest stories in elementary school.  In high school instead of passing notes I would write up one page stories involving water buffalo at a costume ball or jack rabbits learning how to knit and pass those to friends.  Thus confirming your belief that I was a weird child.  This could mean a couple of different things.  1.)  I haven't progressed at all as a writer since age eight or 2.) the idea of animals doing something human has always struck me as really funny. 

To be brave (These writing exercises have reminded me that I'm much more comfortable reading fiction than writing it) I thought I'd share an example:

Bart did not like his pants.  They fit oddly.  They were too long in the leg and too short in the waist and the hole for his tail pinched.  He had purchased them in a hurry without giving too much consideration for comfort because he was under a time crunch. At 11 the next morning he was to stand as best man in the wedding of his oldest friend Mark to Maureen, an accountant who collected angel figurines.  Pants were not optional.  Bart would look at pictures of his grandparents and long for the days when suits were not worn by wolves.  They could roam the land free from the restraint of tailor-made attire, letting their feet and fur breathe.  It wasn’t until, as myth told it, a certain wolf decided to dress in sheep’s clothing to get near his prey that clothes became all the rage.  First it was sheep skin, next it was sports coats.  Hats.  Shoes, sometimes with spats.  Gloves when it was cold.  Ties and pocket squares.  Dresses for the ladies with sashes and trim.  All of these layers of gabardine and tweed seemed, at best superfluous and at worst, an affront to the essence of wolfness.  

*This is another trend I simply cannot handle - non-animated movies with humans and talking animals.  They make me want to throw sharp objects.

Further Tales from the Pod

1.)  Two days ago I referred to the strange morning we had at the Pod.  It was this:  a creeper was calling the office and saying nasty things to the receptionists and so we had to get security involved and keep the door locked all day because we weren't seeing patients.  If only I had had the foresight to bring my nun chucks to work that day.  We all would have felt a whole lot safer. 

2.)  I blame my big butt on one of the doctors who is constantly bringing in food (this morning:  empanadas) and taking us out to lunch (yesterday:  Thai).  I have never worked in an office with so much food.

3.)  A woman came in yesterday who was telling us about her two bouts with breast cancer.  One in each.  She's had one removed and reconstructed and the other has been biopsied to the hilt.  She let us in on their names:  Miss Perky and Droopy Snoopy.  HA!

4.)  The other day one of the girls walked into an exam room to check on a patient, an older lady, and caught her stealing a rather expensive pair of tissue nippers.  She was tucking it up her coat sleeve. The whole thing was taken care of and the lady didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by it. Which, naturally, made me think of Seinfeld.

Surprise Surprise

After kind of a weird day at the Pod (story to follow in a few days) I came home to find an unexpected package on my doorstep.

I love unexpected packages!!!  This one was particularly unexpected because it was from my friend Andrea's sister Teresa who lives in - wait for it - Pahrump, NV.  I've met Teresa once.  Years ago.  I think we all went out to dinner.  So, this was a genuine mystery.  But Andrea's family is solid gold so I was pretty sure it was a good mystery.  Not some creepy mystery, which, considering the morning at the Pod, would not have been too far fetched.

I did not waste time in opening it and found that it was something Dodger-y.

Wanna know what it is?

IT'S A DODGER SNUGGIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andrea's incredibly awesome and fabulous and smart and lovely and thoughtful sister who barely knows me MADE ME A DODGER SNUGGIE!!!!!!

Folks, this feels like the textbook definition of a blessed life.

Weekend Math

Slept in

+

Lounged about in my bathrobe while watching The Empire Strikes Back

+

Surprise invite from Liz and Mary to join them for brunch

+

Biscuits and gravy

+

Mary's baby Peter and his enormous and adorable head

+

And very spur of the mo decision to go see Jane Eyre

+

Still checked multiple things off of my to-do list

=

A pretty good Saturday

The Library is Open

Do you know what has been missing in my life lately?  A book club.  I used to have an amazing one, years ago.  We would eat and laugh and talk about all sorts of things, sometimes even about books.  But then we disbanded when everyone moved away and I haven't found a good one since. 

So I formed a new one.  And we met tonight. And it was wonderful.  My living room was packed with amazing, funny, smart, lovely women and we ate and laughed and talked until 10:30 on a school night.  And we had a rather substantial discussion on the book (Ella Minnow Pea).  It was everything I had hoped for.  It made me want to hug them and then hug all of my books.

As is customary at book clubs I host, I lent out a few books.  I went to the cabinet to pull one out and discovered this little kit that Tammy gave me for my birthday last year which I had completely forgotten about. 

It's my very own library kit!

It has a date stamp and a card for you to pull when it's been checked out and a little pocket that you can stick to the inside flap and put the card back into once it's been returned!  It is the cutest thing I have ever seen.  And I don't think I could have been any more excited to use it.  Everyone who walked away with a book had to have it "libraried up".  I had to squelch the sudden urge to shush people.

As you can see Becky has checked out Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging.  She has been properly warned of the dangers of reading it in public.  Everyone I know who has ventured to do so has snort-laughed over it in front of large groups of people.  (Me - at Jiffy Lube)

Speaking of the End of the World

Confession time:  I've had Britney Spears' new song Till the World Ends stuck in my head for days...and I really like it. 

I think this calls for a trip to New Zealand

Have you seen this!?!?!?!?!*

It's only the most amazing thing ever created in the entire history of created things!!!!!! Generally I snooze through safety videos but if I saw Richard Simmons (with a surprise visit from Phil!!!) in his wee little shorts I would not only be riveted to it I would probably get up and dance and then ask if I could continue on to the next location so I could watch it again.

I think we can all agree that my excessive use of exclamation points is more than justified.

*Thanks Nicole!