We’re a pop culture-obsessed family. (Well, some of us more than one* of us.) It started with my sister and me. We are pop culture fanatics. We watched a healthy dose of television as youngsters**. As we grew up, we devoured movies, live shows, music, and magazines (and of course these days, the internet). As adults, we have exposed D and J to pop culture in the same way we were, and we have shared all of our favorite shows, movies, and music from our own youth. The result of the preoccupation with these kinds of things, besides the ability to be really good at answering questions from friends when…
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Retirement Party Surprise!
Next month, my Dad turns seventy and retires from a long (37 years-ish?) and storied* career in the hospitality industry, hotel management to be more specific. He is looking forward to Retirement Day so much that he has been counting the days for months now. (His enjoyment of the countdown has been greatly aided because of what he’s had to deal with at work lately: pimps, hookers, and drug dealers. Yes, really.) We wanted to throw a party in honor of his retirement, and it just so happened that he and my Mom were coming to town last weekend for her 50th high school reunion. Perfect. My sister designed some…
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Making A Fun Meal Plan Takes Talent & A Lazy Eye For Editing
For the entire time (minus a couple of lazy weeks here and there) since my sister moved in with us, she and I have made a monthly meal plan so we can keep track of who is cooking what and on which day. (Jim and J get dinner duty here and there, too.) At first we started with a straight-up paper calendar that we hung on the refrigerator, but once I finally entered the 21st century and started using Google Calendar for my own scheduling purposes after Julesie had been suggesting it to me for eons, I realized that being able to see the meal plan on my phone–say, if…
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Princess and Knight Training at Medieval Times: A Giveaway, Too!
With all of the things my family has ever done in the Chicago area, believe it or not we’ve never been to Medieval Times. Correction: We HAD never been to Medieval Times until just weeks ago. The Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament has always been on our to-do list, and why not? Horses! Battles! Colorful characters! Jousting! Eating food without utensils! My family was invited to check out the show as well as the Princess Training (we just watched, of course, having not brought a young girl with us, though I tweeted at the time that I probably could have taught the course…) and so we headed to the castle.…
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Go Ahead Punk, Make My Day.
Jim is watching “The Enforcer”, and after watching a scene which contained some very unexpected dialogue (I’ve never seen the movie before), I sat here for five whole minutes doing my best “Dirty Harry” impression in J’s face, finger-pointing and all. “There’s a lot of shooting in this movie, PUNK.” “Hey, he just shot a nun, PUNK. A NUN.” “That wasn’t very nice of him, was it, PUNK?” “Hey, that woman was in a very popular television show in the 80s called ‘Cagney & Lacey’, PUNK.” “As a matter of fact, that was a show about two lady cops, and it was awesome, PUNK.” “Hey PUNK, you’re not even listening…