Two librarians walk into a bookstore...

Finish that sentence.

Basically, last hour of the day, Queen of the Known Universe says she's going to the bookstore to pick up a paperback they ordered for her, meanwhile I had decided that I wanted to read Silver Linings Playbook, but that the line at the library was too long so I was just going to go and buy it.

So we raced over there after work.


I won.


You would have been proud, we didn't fix their displays, rearrange their shelves correctly or yell at the teens who were throwing legos in the kids section.

Not our problem, we don't work there.

And that took incredible talent, you have no idea.

Because the shelver in me wants to scream at their organizational methods.

And the librarian in her wants to make things look nice and neat.

But we restrained ourselves, and made snarky comments instead.

The problem with working with books is that when I don't see a barcode on the front cover I like, pause, and then I'm like, oh yeah, there's not supposed to be one.

Neither is there supposed to be a date written on the bottom or a label on the side to see if an item is actually fiction or nonfiction.

I actually covered bookstore woes a while ago here: You Know You're a Librarian When...

We found some good titles.

She got her paperback.

I bought Silver Linings Playbook.

And Star Wars, the original trilogy in book form.

The boyfriend was oh so excited.

Pretty sure he was not a fan of that movie - Silver Linings Playbook, not Star Wars. He loves Star Wars. More than me, or so he claims.

Speaking of the boyfriend, so I might be going on a motorcar ride with him at the end of the month. If I can find someone to switch shifts with me that is.

Basically it's the one he looks forward to and his dad can't make it but he doesn't want to go alone so....

I asked the boss, will see what she has to say about it.

She calls him "Stude".

Long story.

I find it highly entertaining how fascinated people at work are with my love life.

Apparently it's highly entertaining to them because before him I didn't really have one.

Aside from all the crazies who stalk me there.

Where was I?

Yes, the bookstore.

We had fun, but we always do.

They don't let us work together often.

Mostly because we plot to one day take over the library, and then the world.

And she likes my signs.

I've decided to start an album on Facebook of random signs.

I used to take pictures of them all the time.

Back when I was a nerdy teenager.

Now I'm just a nerd.

With a boyfriend who thinks taking pictures of trains is better than taking pictures of signs.

Wouldn't even pull over to let me jump out and take a picture of the genuine legitimate "Beware of Dog" sign.

Which you only see in redneck movies.

Geez.

Anyway, this nerd is currently watching Murder In Suburbia, season one.

The actual season one, not the "season one" that they sent that was actually season two.

So far, so good.

*staring at boss*
Scribbs: "He plays golf."
Ash: "Why are we so deeply disappointed by that?"

Think Oldest Sister would like it - she's big into British mysteries.

Speaking of, I'm going to Squirt's track meet tomorrow morning to watch her throw and then me, Oldest Sister and Second Sister are gonna hit up the Roller Derby after.

Stoked.

Second Sister has never been before so I'm pretty excited.

But yes, off tomorrow, and Sunday for Easter.

Doing lunch with his family and then an egg hunt and supper with mine.

Okay, normally I would stay up and sleep until noon cause tomorrow I'm off, however, the track meet is in the morning, which means I actually have to get up at a decent time.

So I shall be crashing soon.

Quotes of the Day: these fall into the "things overheard at the library" category:
-"Oh, hand me the one with the naked dancing men."
-"Don't give me virgins, no!"

Don't ask.

Which means on to the music...

Originally the plan was to feature my favorites from Neon Trees and Owl City after Maroon 5's greatest hits, but I got distracted.

Anyway, these guys were great live, when they covered "Don't You Want Me" the crowd went nuts.

Well, the adults, all the teens were looking around bewildered going, "what the hell is this song and why do you know it?"

Here are my favorites from Neon Trees:


Animal

actually bought this one and their album before they hit it big - love free iTunes music, they do this single of the week thing and it was one of them, about a month later it started playing on the radio. He's blonde now, with tight pants and purple shoes. 

1983


1983 is callin' I've been on my knees and crawlin'

In the Next Room

interesting video...

Everybody Talks

another one you probably know, i've posted it enough. though when I hear it now I think of Michaela Paige performing it on The Voice.

Wish List


probably my favorite new original christmas song, like actually original, the rest of mine are all classics.


Tomorrow you'll get Owl City highlights.

typing in the tags with autofill, and "everybody" brought up a tag for "everybody has an uncle johnny" totally forgot about that one.

is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe...

Gonna start off by saying I feel like crap.

I need at least 6 hours of sleep to function and since I got less than 4 last night my stomach is all acidy - does anyone's get that way or is that just me? Like even if I stay up all night on purpose like at lock-ins and stuff when I was a kid - my stomach turns into complete acid and hurts and I'm nauseous and it throws off my whole day. Plus I was burning up this morning but too tired to go get thermometer so I'm really hoping I'm not getting whatever flu is going around cause that means the boyfriend will now get it and he's been sick enough.

Needless to say I slept all day, finally waking up around 5:30 to eat and then crashing back on the couch to watch Bones, Malibu Country and NCIS.

I did however, register for not only summer classes but fall ones as well and did some homework before getting on here to post so the day wasn't a complete loss.

This summer I'll be taking Foundations which is a 1 credit class completely online that you can apparently finish in like a week - yay. And then Library Systems which is 3 credits completely online but it's only in June so with that combination I should be fine for camp in July.

In the fall I'm taking Youth Services which only makes sense since I'm in it and then doing my practicum at the Regional Center. Did I mention Tom is in? I about jumped up and down but then realized that would look bad and I don't want to scare him off already.

Anyway, 3 credits for Youth Services and 2 for 90 hours of Practicum and then I'll be done completely.

After taking comps of course.

Which is going to suck big time.

It's the equivalent of writing a thesis, except that it's four of them basically. She told us to take that week off of work completely.

Oh joy.

I'm already nauseous this is just making it worse.

Okay new topic. Let's go with yesterday.

So, from the beginning, since apparently me not posting means I'm dead on the side of the road.

Sunday, March 2nd,

scratch that, March 3rd,

See, can't even function properly. Good thing I wrote down the class names and numbers before attempting to register today.

Anyway, woke up at 9:50, went to church. Mom was there cause of Grams birthday party, she came early to help the Cool Aunt set up. After church went out with Oldest Sister's family plus Mom plus the Cool Aunt to the awesome Greek restaurant for some flaming cheese - which my niece and nephew are obsessed with cause they light it on fire and yell opa - and some eggs and sausage, cause apparently they have a breakfast menu.

It was awesome.

Afterwards I came back to the apartment, showered, and figured out numbers for classes and added them to a cart so all I had to do was hit enroll and I'm good. Which I did so I'm good.

Then headed over to Grams place for the party. It was a good turnout, some of her siblings were there and their kids, then the Cool Aunt's family and a couple of uncles, one with his wife and a daughter and then ours minus Second Sister who is sick.

So I'm basically screwed cause our family is sick and people at work are sick. I'm hoping it'll just be today and then I'm over it. Granted it's worse cause of the lack of sleep but I don't think that's the entire cause of the thing. Got the gross runny nose and cough to go with it too but I've had that all week.

Blah.

Anyway, we sang and ate cake and jammed out for about an hour with the family. Nice to see some extended family I haven't seen in like years. And Grams was happy so that was good. We took a lot of pictures and I got to talk to my uncles about some family history that I've been attempting to collaborate. Scroll down a few posts, well it might be a few pages by now since you've gotten Jax and Matt Harper since.

I know all this stuff about my Dad's side but really nothing about Mom's side which is weird cause I lived with Grams.

Anyway, I asked my uncles about a family legend - basically my grandpa was a kickass baseball player. And I'm not just saying that. He was a pitcher and no one could hit off him. He played for a farm team in Kansas in the semi-pros and legend has it he got called up to the big leagues, but the day before he was going to leave his throwing arm got hit by a stray ball and his career was over.

But it's legend because my uncles have heard it through extended family and not from their own dad because grandpa was never about showing off. He wrote a book - a novel - and it got published and they didn't even know about it until after it came out.

Which was posthumous, btw.

But he didn't tell them. He was good man, my grandpa, and I'd like to learn more about him but with Grams the way she is with the Alzheimer's I'm almost too afraid to ask her. Cause I don't want to upset her if she doesn't remember.

And it's a hard topic anyway.

I have his journals. Well, sections of his journals that my artist uncle uploaded. But those only go so far, like I said he wasn't one to show off.

So I shall continue to attempt to get my facts from extended family.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, birthday, Grams was happy and it was fun.

After that came back to the apartment to get ready for the concert. The boyfriend has this thing that DRIVES ME NUTS where I tell him to be here at 5 and then he'll text me at like 4:55 saying he's just leaving - there's an hour drive between his place and mine - and then I start freaking out and then 5 minutes later the buzzer on my door goes off and he's here.

Cause he's full of crap and was in the parking lot the whole time.

Mean.

So we left about 5:15, got to the arena around 6:30 and parked in the lot cause we don't really know that area as well. I go there with the Cool Aunt for the CWS but she drives and really, whenever I go there for school I stick to 72nd and Dodge. That's literally all I know. BTW lot parking, bad idea, but I'll get there.

Went in, showed our tickets, found our seats - front row mezzanine on the balcony it was awesome I was like 50 feet away from Adam Levine, holy crap.

The boyfriend said if he lost his voice - like last week - his sister could fill in for him.

First off, Adam Levine and Avril Lavigne are not related.

Which he knows, but did I mention that he's often full of crap just to bug me?

So the seats were great, the guy a couple seats down from us was not so great. We were on the end - and being on the end is awesome - except when people keep insisting on getting up to leave and go talk to the people in the row behind you. Eventually they just went and sat back there but there were at least 5 times he had to walk back and forth in front of us before that happened.

Anyway, Owl City was first.



They did about 5 songs - I knew 2 of them, apparently I need to listen to their new album cause all I could sing were Fireflies and Good Time. Fireflies was super cool cause everyone had their phone out in the pitch dark and it looked like fireflies.



Then came Neon Trees - whom I love.



See, I got their single Animal free off itunes way before they were on the radio. So then when I heard it on the radio I went nuts - same thing with Hey Monday and La Roux. They played Animal, Everybody Talks, some others from their new album and then covered Don't You Want Me by the Human League. The audience went nuts, we went nuts. The boyfriend even sang that one.

But the sociology minor in me kicked in during this whole thing cause the majority of the people in the audience were either 40 or teenagers. And then there was like me and him and Beej (who was there with a group of teenagers.) Anyway, so it was hysterical because when they covered that all the "old" people - they're not old, don't scoff, I'm just saying in the context of audience members they were old compared to the teenagers - so all the "old" people were yelling out the lyrics while the younger ones sat back and went, "what the hell is this song and why do you know the words?" So they rocked it, but not nearly as much as Maroon 5 rocked it.

Holy crap. So while Owl City and Neon Trees sang about 5 a piece, Maroon 5 sang about 20, and it was awesome.

They started with Payphone and it all went uphill from their, even including classics like Sunday Morning, She Will Be Loved, Harder to Breathe, and This Love. Other ones you might know are Wake Up Call, Won't Go Home Without You, Makes Me Wonder, Misery, Moves Like Jagger, and then their newest One More Night, Daylight, Lucky Strike, and Love Somebody - amongst others. It was awesome.



So they sang 3 out of my top 5 - Won't Go Home Without You, Misery, and Moves Like Jagger only missing Back At Your Door and How. But I love them all and making that top 5 and leaving others out like Man Who Never Lied, Doin' Dirt, Get Back In My Life, One More Night and Lucky Strike are painful, but they're in my top 10.



Did I mention I was a fan?

Blame Second Sister.

She's the one that gave me the Hands All Over CD that brought them back in my life - after the first album I got distracted by other artists. Now they're back full-force.

And she's the one that called today demanding details.



Anyway, one of the coolest things was how much he featured James Valentine. Kept calling him a native and saying how excited he was to do the show for months and how he deserves the most camera time.

Held up his guitar pick that said Jimmy V.



Loved it.

For those of you who don't know James Valentine is his guitarist.

And he's from Lincoln.

Plus he's awesome so it's a trifecta.

And speaking of natives - Neon Trees' sound engineer is from Omaha so he and his kid ran onstage before the performance and took a picture in front of the crowd.

I literally cannot ramble enough about how awesome Maroon 5 were live.



I mean, Neon Trees was fantastic. Tyler has some excellent dance moves - and cool shoes - plus their female drummer is phenomenal, but Adam, James and the rest of their crew were even better.



It was amusing because at one point they gave Adam a camera and he went around introducing his band members.

They sang for a while then left the stage and I'm like, are they not gonna sing Moves Like Jagger? I was in shock. Then they dropped the bridge which was up in the ceiling to the platform in the middle of the crowd and they came back out and sang that was plus She Will Be Loved - acoustic with James - Stereo Hearts, and Daylight.



Instead of Xtina it was some brunette, who I'll have to Google cause I have no idea who it was. She was good just not as good as Xtina. She did has kickass boots though.

As do a lot of people lately so apparently I need some. Which Oldest Sister keeps insisting but see the only place I go is work. And the last time I wore boots to work was on a dare - the cowboy ones after Myers, sorry Connelly's wedding - and they kicked my ass. That was painful.

There's a reason I don't wear heels, you should have seen me in drama senior year, oh geez.

Silver high heels as Elaine Harper in Arsenic and Old Lace attempting to flee Jonathan and his henchman Einstein (who just happens to be the current boyfriend.)

"Run across the stage in these and don't make noise that the floor mics will pick up."

Yeah, right.

I got so much crap from Juwanna. Still have a picture of us holding them after a performance.

Where was I?

See what I said about ramblings? Amped just talking about the concert - it was this times ten last night which is why I couldn't sleep.



It rocked, so they sang and we sang - boyfriend included.

Which he will deny I'm sure so please bring it up in the future.

But he did good.

Was the perfect present.

So of course afterward he's like, you know I'll never be able to top that, right?

Ever the romantic showing up at work with flowers and all that.

He'll think of something.

After we got out of the building we got stuck in the lot for an hour, and like I said they sang about 20 plus the other 10 so it was way way way late by the time we got back.

Which is why I'm going to bed early tonight - early meaning midnight.

Which is 5 minutes from now.

So I should stop rambling and post the music and fiction and then crash.

As expected you're gonna get a lot of Maroon 5 for the next week.

Or two.

So get used to it.

Figuring out how I'm gonna divide this up. Think I'll go by album so favorites from Songs About Jane - came out 2002 - of course I can't post them all so you'll get 3 and then tomorrow you'll get more from SAJ and then it'll go from there on...

Harder To Breathe



This Love


She Will Be Loved


THEY LOOK SO YOUNG!

alright, all fantastic and now it's on to the Jax's finale. or should i say beginning.

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - Part Six

I get about halfway done with my own grave before my arms start shaking and I can’t dig anymore. The taller man looks at me, then at the dead girl, then at me again. I shake my head no. It doesn’t matter what I say, I’m dead anyway.

The taller man points his gun at my head. “Any last words, Mr. Jameson?” he asks.

I just stare at him.

“Go with God,” he says, cocking his gun.

“If there was a god, there wouldn’t be people like me,” I reply, closing my eyes waiting for the gunshot.

“Jax…Jax,” says a female voice.

Who was that? How do they know my name? I open my eyes and look around, seeing only the two men in front of me and the dead girl to my left. None of the three have moved since I closed my eyes or seem to notice another female presence.

“What?” I ask.

“Your alarm is going off,” says the voice.

Alarm? I blink and I’m gone. Ceiling. No stars. A dream. “Right, sorry,” I say reaching for my phone and turning off the alarm. Eight A.M. I sit up, throwing my legs over the side of the bed, and run my hands over my face. It was a dream. Stop sweating. In my stomach I can feel her eyes on me. I turn around and see the girl smiling at me. It’s probably against regulations to sleep with your assigned partner the night before a mission but I’ve never been one for following rules. She looks a lot better without the blood-splattered face. I should really get her name before the op tonight. She only knows mine, or one of my aliases rather, because I paid for the hotel room with a credit card.

I grab my duffel bag and walk to the bathroom to take a shower. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. After I’m done I return to find her dressed and cleaning her gun. Eight-fifteen A.M.

“Ready?” she asks, looking up at me from the chair in the corner.

“Yeah.”

She pulls a phone out from her bag and hands it to me. I hold down the number two key, activating the speed dial. It takes two rings before someone picks up.

“I can get you what you want,” I say simply. There is a pause.

“Blue building, corner of thirty-third and Thomas,” says a German voice. “Eleven P.M. Through the back door and up the stairs to the second floor. Come alone.” Dialtone.

I look at the girl. “Phase one, complete.”

***11:15 P.M.***

“Do we have an understanding, Herr Jameson?” the German asks, staring at me through the darkened office. 

...

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - We go into the circle by night and are consumed by fire.

and then it starts over again. cause it's a circle.

...for more pictures see facebook album...

"Weird to meet you." "Likewise."

When it comes to popsicles stick with what you know.

Don't try to be adventurous cause it will backfire.

I eat a lot of popsicles.

More than most normal human beings, like 3 or 4 times a week.

Just nightly ritual or habit or whatever. I don't know, but I fly through boxes.

Anyway, I usually stick with this same brand that's got grape and cherry and orange and orange used to be my favorite but now I'm kinda liking the cherry - surprisingly cause I always used to hate cherry, it was too sweet - anyway, I saw this other box that had like pineapple and other fruit stuff as flavoring and I like pineapple and other fruit stuff so I figured I'd try it?

Epic fail.

So, 2012 was a big year. Many memories were made though I do have to say and yes I will be sappy romantic girl for the next few minutes so you can skim this section if you'd like - would be getting back together with the boyfriend one year ago today.

I went out to his place cause Mondays are the worst for him.

Yes, I'm aware it's Wednesday but it's Monday to him because of the holidays and vacation and he had to switch from normal people hours to third shift hours. So he slept, well, attempted to sleep all day but woke up at seven to meet me at the movies.

We saw Jack Reacher and holy crap, I totally underestimated it. Scale of Awesome puts it at around 9/10. Tom Cruise was fantastic, I know, shocking. We're hoping there will be a sequel.



Awesome action scenes with just enough comedy - like the hat thing - to make you laugh but not like it's trying too hard.

I should probably mention that I lost my voice today. I don't feel sick, I have a runny nose, but the voice is just gone. It's bad. Should have called Juwanna and sang some Amazing Grace as is our tradition.

I did tell him he didn't have to kiss me on our anniversary but he braved it anyway. Though when a girl phrases it like that and the boyfriend agrees he's gonna catch hell the next morning.

Similar to how we say we're fine.

We're not.


Alright, as promised you'll get a week of my favorites from 2012. Let's start with some big ones.


Brokenhearted - Karmin



after some promotions from Ellen and a lot of video viewings on youtube they hit it big. gotta take pride in the fact they're from nebraska. don't have a lot of those.

Everybody Talks - Neon Trees


so stoked to see these guys in March!! the boyfriend spoils me.

Call Me, Maybe - Carly Rae Jepson


no matter where you go you can't escape this song. it's just too dang catchy.

alright i'm out!

hey baby won't you look my way, i can be your new addiction...

So you can add tornado warnings to the ever-growing list of awkward situations in which I've met my neighbors.

Spent some time in the basement.

With the cool kids.

And there was a cat.

And it was cool too.

More calm than mine, I left him in my apartment.

Does that make me a bad mother?

Leaving my cat in my apartment when there's a tornado warning?

I would have taken him if it was serious, but it was north of town so I figured it was okay.

Anyway, I'm back now and watching Morning Glory. For some weird reason I had an urge to watch it. Perhaps it's because I've spent the last hour watching the news. Weather-central.

Morning Glory.

Fantastic movie.

Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford, Rachel McAdams.

Awful morning news show that she turns around, it's quite funny.

Uh-oh. Sirens.

Police ones this time, not the storm ones. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they came back.

Get to spend more time in the basement with the cool kids.

But for now I'll keep watching "at least we're not Daybreak"

Today was good, slept in woohoo!

Went to the volunteer banquet, got lost along the way so I had to call Superwoman,

"are you driving a red car?"
"yes"
"do you see me waving?"
"yes"
"good then you found it, i'm going inside"

It was pouring.

It was crappy weather all day.

Hence the basement dwelling.

But the volunteer thing went off without a hitch. And they had really great snacks. Catered man. They rocked.

And I got to jam with my coworkers from other branches. And heard what's in store for me this upcoming year for grad school. Basically no sleep or free time whatsoever. Should be fun.

Fantastic.

Hm.

I'll figure it out.

Anyway, lots and lots and lots of volunteers all in one place at one time so it was mass hysteria, but good mass hysteria.

Cause sometimes mass hysteria can be good, right?

Basically a bunch of library volunteers gathered at this recreation center and were honored and got free stuff and free food and speeches were made, BossLady made one of them, she was a "speech-er" and got to hold a giant check. Squirt and I took a picture with it, it was mildly exciting.

So weird seeing Harrison Ford as this old news anchor dude. Just watched Star Wars the original trilogy so it's amusing to see how he's aged, but still his characters remain the same. Arrogant, wise-ass, scoundral types, but it works well for him.

Alright, think I'm gonna grab a snack and then crash.

Guessing the storms are passed as it's been an hour and no sirens. Well, weather ones anyway.

So, I'm out. But I'll leave you with some good music. And yeah. That's all I got.

"Everybody Talks" Neon Trees

diggin' the drive-in dive.

i absolutely love these guys. "animal" was great, but the rest of the album was really catchy as well, had to buy it off itunes.
plus their christmas song, first new original christmas song that i can actually stand!! like, artists these days try too hard trying to write ones they think will become classics and just fail epically, you know? but this one, is just simply fantastic. and classic. go here: I just want you, oh darling, I just want you...

or just check it out here:

yes, christmas in april.

just go with it.

"Wish List" Neon Trees

i still love it. and am jamming to it. in april.

i'm a nerd. get used to it.

OUT!



More tomorrow.

Camp Season Has Begun

First camp meeting of the year.

Yep, camp season has officially begun.

Tonight Pastor, Jim and myself put together a basically "coming at you" letter that gives them a heads up about the dates and theme and all that. And to watch their mail for upcoming application forms.

Totally intense man, worked for like five minutes and then we got stuck cause my computer's not hooked up to the copier but Pastor's is but Pastor was gone at the moment so I ended up drawing random pictures of the board for Homey G-Wigger for when she gets back. Basically I drew all of 2G aka Blackstone - pastor - Dash Riprock - Jim - Homey G Wigger and then Choot 'em Lizbet - me. And we're all posing as normal so pastor and G wigger are golfing normal though I should hvae drawn her driving like a maniac. Jim lost his ball in the tree and is whacking the tree with the club and I'm on the ground next to the golf cart cause she's thrown me out of it two years running.

Anyway, camp, right.

We're going with "The Ultimate Transformer" Pastor found a cool passage to go with it, it should be fun. Very different compared to last year's theme of "Guiding Light" which was fantastic as it was all soap opera-esque and I'm the skits and worship person. Plus registrar. Plus administration. Plus plus plus... But I got Liz with me for the music part. Apparently she's working on songs already, woohoo! She writes one every year. Last year we attempted to but it didn't turn out as good as hers do.

And we cheated, used a song already in existence and added a verse to the end of it. That way the melody was already written and all we needed was one verse. Fool-proof!

Anyway, so we came up with a coming at you flyer and stuff some envelopes. Gotta love those labels you can print out on special paper and just stick them to the envelope, those are fanstic and make our life loads easier.

No hand-addressed envelopes which is good cause my handwriting is atrocious.

As I'm falling asleep while I type this I'll keep it short.

Tomorrow is work plus Squirt and Bubby's trial of the bad wolf play. He plays the evil villain - two years running woohoo! - and she plays some sort of fairy godmother. Should be fun.

Then Saturday is the volunteer recognition banquet which I gotta go to as the TAB kids are going. Think it's basically about the awesomely catered food, haha no, it's a great way to show appreciation cause some of these volunteers dedicate a good chunk of their lives to do it.

And that's my ramble nation for the day. Tune it next time for family anecdotes and humiliations.

"Everybody Talks" Neon Trees


"Til I Kissed You" Everly Brothers


same message, different style. much different.

I just want you, Oh darling, I just want you.

Happy Christmas Eve-Eve!

Worked until 4, did more supply rounds, filled out my first request to purchase form, woohoo! Then went over my TAB stuff with my YS mentor, she's great so she walks me through all the steps and answers all my stupid questions.

After work I picked up Grams and we met up with the rest of the family at the hotel for our pitch tournament. I partnered up with my favorite sister-in-law and we actually did pretty decent. We dominated the Bash Brothers in the first round, though they went on to win the tournament but we ended at the middle table. I think we won the most games, or maybe the second most.

It's just all about timing. You have to win at the head table during the last round, so you could completely suck the first few rounds then win three in a row and you'll jump from loser's table to middle table to winner of the high table. Lull people into a false sense of security then smack then down like the hand of god. But Teina and I do none of that lull stuff. She bid 7 our first hand and we made 9.

But we rocked it. About time too, the last time we were partners was Thanksgiving for pinochle and we got owned. It was sad.

We were the classiest so we got pretzel M&M's. Bash Brothers were hot so they got hot tamales, red hots and a gift certificate to Chili's. Oldest Sister and Squirt were cold so they got light up snowpeople.

Second year in a row for Oldest Sister. Though last year she was partnered with Dad.

Brother and Bubby won the Most Obnoxious award.

The surprise of the evening was when Second Sister and her husband ended at the winner's table when this was the first time he actually played pitch with us.

Quote of the night:
"Better books than booze" about our homeless population that visits the library.

So we rocked the night with our cranberry margaritas, ate our pizza, little smokies and peanut butter balls, and laughed a lot.

Cool Aunt rocks for setting this all up. Year Two was a success, looking forward to Year Three.

Okay, where were we?

Christmas Music that Doesn't Suck: Day Ten

"Wish List" Neon Trees

yes you know them from "Animal" but this song is fantastic.
it's their own christmas song! that they actually wrote! who writes new christmas music? ever? people just revamp old stuff, so I was excited about this one.

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" Glee Cast Version

Mercedes and Santana rock it. and of course Rachel. Rachel's always fantastic. Even though she's really obnoxious and a lot of time I just want to smack her.

"White Christmas" The Drifters

if you're a Home Alone nut like me you'll recognize this one from the aftershave scene. I love those movies. Well, the good ones.
The first one rocks it's a total classic,
the second one's crap though I do love Tim Curry,
the third one's surprisingly fantastic Alex D Linz pulled it off,
the fourth is crap and that's all I have to say about that. You probably didn't know there WAS a fourth. Don't watch it. It's awful.

"Welcome Christmas" Glee Cast Version

yes there are two glee selections, but no She & Him, so there! I can't help it if their remakes are fantastic.
the whole Christmas album is pretty great, both of them now that the second one is out.
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the classic version no offense jim carrey) is an essential part of Christmas. I watch the movie and read the book. Though I don't need the actual book present as I can recite it without looking.

That and Doris Day. I listen to a lot of her music as well.

But it still doesn't feel like Christmas without the snow. Just an extended weekend. Is this what it feels like every year for people who live in civilizations without snow? like Florida?

Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, woohoo!