Ever After tour cities. Am I coming near you?

Reblogged from Kim Harrison's Drama:

It's a touch early, so don't imagine that these cities are chiseled in stone, and I usually lose one, gain another along the way due to venue changes, but I've got the first tentative list of tour cities for EVER-AFTER, and it looks like a nice, mostly warm week or so out with you guys!  Remember, I'm touring an entire month early this year, right in the middle of winter.  

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Kim Harrison and The Hollows series has brought me back to a genre I have always enjoyed. Start from the beginning, you will be hooked.

Wine On A Plane

Wine On A Plane.

Wake Up Madison – It’s Regatta Time!

Driving around Madison’s hilltop this afternoon we noticed that several of the hydroplanes for this year’s Madison Regatta were just rolling into town. What is a hydroplane you ask?? It’s this big-*ss boat that seems to glide across the water at speeds upwards to 200 mph!!! They are amazing to watch and the festivities that surrounds the yearly Madison Regatta wakes Madison up every year as thousands and thousands of people pour onto the riverbanks of the Ohio River to enjoy the boats and drivers and okay, all the drunk people wandering up and down Vaughn Drive.

It just so happens that Madison, Indiana has the only community owned hydroplane as well as the worlds best driver Steve David and believe me, we are very proud of both! The U-6 Oh boy! Oberto/Miss Madison has been a rolling chamber of commerce for the city for over 50 years now and with the help of the Oberto Family we have finally made it to the top. 

Not the most exciting post I’ve ever written but I’m amping up for all the excitement. Since I work at the local newspapers I will spend the next few days updating websites, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts! So while I don’t necessarily get to have the same Regatta experience as the average fan I still enjoy the excitement of it all.

The photo above was taken when the new U-6 was christened.

Happy Mother’s Day…

The church I’ve been a member of for almost 37 years had their annual Mother/Daughter banquet this week.

Without going in to too much detail let’s just say I quit going to this particular church because of a few things that had happened and the way certain people conducted themselves in God’s house. This is only the second time I’ve been back and I’ve always questioned whether I had made the right decision. After this little episode I’m pretty sure I did the right thing.

The problem started this time when we were getting ready to go to the program portion of the evening. My Mom is president of the Women’s Missionary who traditionally are in charge of this event. They have a new minister and he wanted to be in charge so the other ladies weren’t sure what was going to be involved. When they took a look at the program there was a song that no one had ever heard of and the pianist didn’t even know how to play – Mom and some of her friends wanted to switch the song to “Faith of Our Mothers” (made perfect sense to me) – the pianist who happens to be one of the crazy women I like to avoid turned into the devil in front of our eyes by refusing to play the song and not having anything to do with it! She made an ass out of herself in the dining area just because they wanted to change a single song. She didn’t even know how to play the thing so I really don’t get it. My daughter and nieces were trying to figure out why she had to be so mean (there’s a song in there somewhere). This went on for a few minutes with other people when we got to the sanctuary and finally I just sat down and started laughing – my stomach felt like it had acid spinning around in there and I was clenching my jaw and my fists. This is the exact reason I quit coming to church here in the first place! I’m pretty sure you are not supposed to feel like you want to spit nails every time you walk in the church door and talk to people.

So while I’ve been kicking myself in the behind the last few years for giving up on going to church there I have felt a weight lifted the last few days because it wasn’t the wrong choice. I clearly don’t belong out there. Now – tomorrow is Mother’s Day and since my Mom refuses to change churches at this late date I’m again going to bite my tongue and go to church with my Mom. Say a couple extra prayers for me, I’m going to need them!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you ladies out there………

Harder Than I Thought

I have a new respect for all the bloggers out there. Even if it is a crappy blog it certainly takes some work. I just wanted to try and write something once a week and have failed miserably. I occasionally come across things that I think ahhh…. but then I think naaaaah – who the heck cares about what I do or think.

I could write about the great time my cousin Mike and I had when we went to a recent Reds game. It was a last minute idea, my daughter Christian picked out awesome seats as a Mother’s day present. We were about 17 rows behind the Reds dugout staring at Joey Votto on first base. Of course, we actually went because the Cincinnati Reds were honoring the 2012 University of Kentucky Wildcats for their 8th NCAA Championship. Some Cincinnati natives were all up in arms but since there were allegedly 19,000 people there for the Tuesday night game and probably 5,000 of them were Big Blue Nation members I’m guessing it was a good deal for the Reds organization.

After the introductions and Coach Cal throwing out the first pitch it was announced that the trophy would be on display for the first four innings if fans would like to take their picture with it. What they did NOT announce and was a delightful suprise was that Coach Calipari was with the trophy signing autographs and shaking hands. Our guest photographer for the night was Coach Antiqua – what more could a fan ask for! I have heard people complain about Coach Cal, but the man gets it. He made sure that any fan that was there got the opportunity to get their picture taken and feel a part of this years championship win.

Mike and I were positively giddy by the time the night was over and to top it all off the Reds kicked it in gear and won.

Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, OH. Coach Calipari and I.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday has always been one of my favorite holidays.

As a child getting that new Easter dress, purse and hat was so much fun. Getting a new dress for Easter was
still ingrained in me until just a few years ago. I kind of miss not having a reason to play dress us.
I still even have several of my little hats that Mom kept for me in a hat box in the closet. I think there are even a few pictures where I have little white gloves. Can you imagine trying to get girls in those today?

Traditionally we would always get all dressed up and go to my grandmother’s church in Kentucky. Sunday School always included the Bible story and if were really lucky we got one of these giant pictures of Jesus to take home! My cousins and I would all be dressed and would sit in the back of the church with my uncles who kept trying to keep us quiet as we would giggle and wiggled waiting to be let loose into the sunshine. Before ripping off those new clothes we had to have the annual “cousin” photo taken, one of my aunts would march us outside to the little hill, group us all together and snap away.

After lunch, where for some reason the men always got to eat first, we would then run outside and play around the large ginkgo tree that was in the front yard with it’s huge uneven roots that we would climb over. I remember hunting for Easter eggs. Not those plastic ones, these were real eggs that after two or three times of hiding were all cracked and ready to be retired for the day.

As we got a little bit older we turned to softball. We would play in the pasture in front of the barn. It would start out as boys vs girls with the older uncles playing for both sides in the field. It ALWAYS ended up in a huge fight! It was almost always the adults NOT the kids fighting. One would accuse the other of playing harder for the girls or not trying hard enough for the boys. It was crazy and it was fun! I can even remember a few of us kids sitting around just waiting for them to duke it out, which they never did. These days those uncles are all in their late 50s and 60s and while they don’t play softball anymore they have been known to get into a few arguments and give each other a hard time during family get togethers.

My grandmother has been gone for several years now and as the “cousins” all have grown and have children of their own we don’t get together like we used to. These days Easter Sunday is spent at home with a few family members and friends. Lots of great food and great conversation but if I stop for a moment I can just hear the echo of laughter from a bunch of little girls dying to get outside and enjoy the beginning of spring.

Easter at Mother's.

Run Buddy Run

At our house we spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the television. In fact, I would go as far as to say our television is on 20 hours a day on average. Just keeping up with our tv schedule and recordings takes a DVR with two tuners, a TiVo with two tuners, EyeTV on our Mac Mini and we still manage to miss things we want to watch.

How in the world have our lives become so consumed?

My earliest memory is of my Mom watching JFK’s funeral on a black & white console when I was all of 18 months old. It was love at first sight. I suppose I’m of the generation where we had tv time. I can remember all the goodies Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Run, Buddy, Run (which I thought was just my imagination until the lovely internet was born).

Does anyone else have the vision burned in your memory of your mother doing exercises with the kitchen chair and Jack LaLanne? I remember curling up on the floor in front of the tv for the Ed Sullivan Show, Jackie Gleason and Dean Martin. Later on it was the likes of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Alias Smith & Jones, Hogan’s Heroes, Laugh-In, Magnum PI and M*A*S*H just to name a few.

Magnum PI of course featured Tom Selleck who was my crush for years! Who am I kidding, I still think he’s handsome. My daughter and I went to Universal Studios several years ago and I was thrilled to death to have my picture taken with the Ferrari! My daughter on the other hand was 12 at the time and thought her mother was crazy.

One of my favorite shows when I was in elementary school was Dark Shadows. I was in love with David Selby, my grandmother even let me put his picture up in the room I stayed in at their house and I belonged to the Jonathan Frid fan club with some of my other friends. It was a sad, sad day for me and my friends when it was cancelled. Just the first of many teenage heart throbs I would have over the years.

Some of my best family memories involve us all watching television together. After reruns started you would always find my grandmother watching Gunsmoke, Waltons or Little House on the Prairie.
I learned to avoid visiting at certain times if I didn’t want to have to listen to Pa and Half-Pint.The series finale of M*A*S*H was when I was grown and married but we had to go home to Mom and Dad’s and we all piled around the tv and said goodbye to Hawkeye, BJ and Col. Potter – television characters become part of the family and you hate to see them go.

This is why GetGlue is my latest addiction. I check-in to different shows and leave/read comments with peeps who like similar shows. Big Bang Theory, Fringe, Bones, Once Upon A Time, Lost Girl, Eureka, and Justified seem to have the most loyal followers and I love every comment.

Oooops, time to catch late night showing of Psych!

Magnum PI Ferrari, Universal Studios, California 1998

Colors of Spring

I love springtime – after the drab and gray winter to suddenly see color start popping up everywhere just makes me want to stop and take pictures of any tiny little flower or spot of color that catches my eye. I went as far as stopping along a country road to take pictures on my iPhone of wildflowers one summer, of course the people in the car with me thought I was insane.

If you watch television, pay attention to those iPhone and Droid commercials they would have you think that anyone can be a professional photographer. All you have to do is just snap, edit with your finger and upload in about 2 minutes. Piece of cake!

Not so fast my friends. I take a picture and it looks like a snapshot my Mom might have taken with her old Brownie camera from the 50′s. Several of my friends can take a photo and it has character, it has composition, it looks great. Me? Not so much.

So as another spring rolls around I see all my family and friends photos they post of the world around them and I have an iPhone full of bad snapshots. Happy snapping everyone.

What ever happened to common courtesy?

I’m a country girl at heart. I grew up in a small, small town on a major highway that you would miss if you blinked your eyes. We had a gas station, a grocery story and my parents had an electronics/antique store. Strange combo but it worked for them, they managed to raise 4 kids and while we weren’t rich by any means we had everything we needed or really even wanted.

These people were part of your extended family. You looked out for each other, went to church together, even played the occasionally game of softball together and oh, we fought… but in the end, you were a family/community.

Fast forward 30 plus years and I now live in a little larger town, two years ago we purchased our first home in a quiet neighborhood that I have loved until recently. We have this 30something neighbor that lives behind us and insists on parking his diesel Dodge RAM in front of our house. That’s okay, it’s on street parking. What’s not alright is having him sit in this truck with duel exhausts for 10-15 minutes rattling the windows in our house and he talks on the phone or just lets it rumble while he goes in the house and takes a shower, packs a bag, who knows! Could he park other places, most certainly, is it the neighborly thing to do ABSOLUTELY! I’m thinking about borrowing one of friends vehicles and going down the back alley and parking it (with the motor running of course) by the little French doors of his apartment, maybe he’ll get the message although I guess it would be declaring all out war. But is this a war I can win??

So I ask, what ever happened to helping and looking out for your neighbor or just plain common courtesy?

Don’t even get me started on the jerk who ran into my car during the middle of the night recently and drove away without stopping! But that’s another story….

I have to congratulate my Boys in Blue, the Kentucky Wildcats for making it to the Sweet Sixteen!Looking forward to a rematch of the UK vs IU battle at Catlanta Friday night!
Go CATS! #BBN Rules

6 am Friday morning…

 

It’s Friday morning, 6 am and I’ve already been at work for an hour. Why you ask? What sane person would come to work at 5 am instead of the usual 8 or 9 am? Apparently me, today at least. Took a sleeping pill, crawled in bed around 11 pm and my mind immediately shifted into 5th gear! As I lay there with my C-PAP mask on like a good little girl – listening to that Darth Vadar like breathing, my mind kept worrying about not going to sleep and then not waking up on time. After a 90 minute battle I gave up, did a couple loads of laundry, went into the attic about 5x and was actually productive for once. Around 3 am I started hearing shouting outside, who’s up yelling at 3 am? Never did find them, maybe it was so quiet the voices carried from another street. The wall hit about 4:30 but I was committed at that point, doctors appointment early and then let’s see how long I can last without collapsing on my keyboard head first. Kerplunk! TGIF and thankfully – no UK game tonight, I wouldn’t be able to stay awake! In our family that’s unforgivable.