Nothing interrupts lunch quite so abruptly as a training potty cup full of pee being delivered to the table by a proud three-year-old.

Okay, so I admit I'm watching AFI's questionable top 10 list from 10 genres. The Incredibles didn't come up at all in the animation category, and Finding Nemo was number 10. And Groundhog Day was one of their top 10 fantasy films. Huh. Anyway. So lots of the commercials have to do with movies, naturally, including Wall-e, which is the new Pixar flick.

My question is this: Is it just me, or is the main protagonist in every frakking Pixar film always male??

And here's my follow-up question: Can anyone think of a sidekick character in a Disney animated film that is female?

I've been trying to read my gmail since last night, and for whatever reason it's not coming up. Grumble grumble grumble.

NEWS: We finally sold the Rochester house! The inspection was this morning, the carpet was installed in the old rabbit room this afternoon, and the house is good to go. Yay!! Our nine-month trial is over! I should be more excited, and really I AM happy about it, but I'm feeling totally overwhelmed here in Big Lake. Plus I think it hasn't really sunk in yet. Maybe when we have a little more money instead of paying two mortgages?

Liv's new word is "turtle." She picked that up at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth on Sunday. Went there for Mom's day, and man was she a clingy little beast. She totally soaked herself at the water tables, first dipping a foot in as I tried to pass her over to the other side, and then proceeding to douse herself every time she moved a boat around (it's a model of the Great Lakes and the canals). Nice enough place, but overpriced for what you get. We understand that they have to keep it running, though. And they did give us passes good through the rest of the year because part of the place is under construction and they said they wanted us to come back and see the finished product. So that was a bonus.

Getting some fun birds at the feeders now that it's spring(-ish). Rose-breasted grosbeaks, goldfinches back in color (they get really drab over winter), Baltimore orioles (no, they don't bring their bats and mitts with them). The frogs have been singing for over a month now, and just this past week I've heard at least three toads singing. Helps that we volunteer to survey frog and toad populations for the DNR, so I know what I'm listening to.

BTW, if anyone is in the area and has made it down this far reading, I need a break. Anyone want company or want to be company? Seems like it's later in the week than Tuesday night.

Can you tell I'm lonely? This is the longest entry in a long while. Stupid gmail.

So, I've always been "one of the guys" ever since I started having guy friends. And I tend to get along better with guys--in general, that is--than I do with women. I was once told I "didn't count" as a woman, though, because of my being one of the guys.

So what I'm wondering is, is it sexier to be one of the guys, or sexier NOT to be one of the guys? Show your work.

Does it qualify as ironic that the National Geographic Channel just ran a program called Sweet Tooth, about how some favorite candies and confections (Peeps, Jelly Bellies, Twinkies) are made, and are following it with a program called The Science of Obesity?

I know I'm getting old, or at least more socially conscious, when I hear that each batch of Twinkies requires however many thousands of eggs, flour, and so on, and all I can think is that all that food is being used to make snack cakes when so many people can't afford to buy AN egg, or anything else, for that matter.

Adults are almost always jealous of Olivia's ability to fold herself in half and touch her ears with her toes.

I'm really hungry.

Olivia has a pair of plastic binoculars that I picked up at a garage sale for a quarter, and she hasn't used them in a while, but it seems she rediscovered them today. On a related note, we feed the birds in our backyard--right now, mostly out of season color goldfinches, blue jays, cardinals, a variety of woodpeckers, and dark-eyed juncos, although today we had a big crow poking around and in the fall we had a possum. ANYway, Olivia wandered over to the doorwall to do a little birdwatching, binoculars in hand ... and backwards. I imagine the birds, which aren't really that far away, must have looked very tiny.

Check out the photos at www.potentiallynervous.blogspot.com and the ADORABLE bunny at http://www.photographyvoice.com/pv/potd/ViewPOTD.aspx?c=15123

Don't know if you'll be able to see that second one after today. On the blog one, check out the other posts. I just love me some buns!

How to tell you've been wandering around Menard's too long:

The "save big money at Menards" song becomes "shave big monkeys at Menards" in your head.


Sometimes a space station is just a space station:

Olivia discovered our Babylon 5 micromachines yesterday and was holding the space station
like a cigarette. Then she picked up the Vorlon ship and held it over her head like an umbrella. I had to take it away from her, though, because she eventually decided it looked like a pacifier. Take that, enigmatic aliens!

I'm an admitted bunny freak, so I'm probably biased, but this is also one of my favorite Stones songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUAbkRUvVQ

Courtesy of robertmapril, via lockholm, the meme/game is as follows:

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies. (I did 10 cause that's all the movies I could think of :P)
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING / using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters.

1. "More than two shakes and it's playing with yourself."

2. "You're getting older, and you'll see that life isn't like your fairy tales. The world is a cruel place. And you'll learn that, even if it hurts."

3. "Wanna get drunk and fool around?"

4. "In this family, we do not solve problems by hitting people!"
"No, in this family, we shoot them!"

5. 'She amuses herself with silly questions about the world below, such as "How many people are having an orgasm right now?"'

Amelie

6. "You know, you can't just go around and shoot people in the kneecaps with a double-barreled shotgun 'cause you pissed at 'em."
"Why not?"
"'Cause it's called assault with a deadly weapon, you get 20 years for that shit."

7. "I finally get a bouquet and it's a goodbye present. That's depressing."

8. "This landing is gonna get pretty interesting."
"Define "interesting"."
"Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?"

Serenity

9. "You're a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary."

10. "A frog does not dog paddle!"

11. "Can you run? I think not... I think not."

12. "That's not fair!"
"You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?"

13. "Have you met anyone recently who might loathe the very core of you?"

14. "Do you no good to go poking around under rocks, Justin. Some very nasty things live under rocks, especially in foreign gardens."

15. "Think of it as a hobby. Something you do to relax. You're an "assassination enthusiast.""

I love our backyard. We had a nice yard in Rochester, but right now I'm looking out the back door at the pine trees, and there's a beautiful red cardinal tucked deep in the green, keeping warm as it gets darker. :)

And there's nothing quite like finding a Backyardigans toy on clearance at Walmart and having Olivia fall in love with pushing the buttons. The best part, other than that I was able to slip it away from her and not actually spend the $13 for it, was her hitting the yellow star button over and over without waiting for it to say its whole speech, "Hi, I'm Pablo. Who is this?". So, I guess what I'm saying is, there's nothing quite like walking around Walmart with a toy that keeps saying, "Hi, I'm hi I'm hi I'm hi ..."

Sheep don't go in your pants.

For the record, it's a plastic, Little People sheep. And there goes Liv, pants around her ankles, shuffling off to gather more animals for the farm, no doubt.

Do I just radiate snuggliness? Liv is asleep on my chest, and Poco is asleep on my legs. By law, I'm not allowed to move. Am I a living bean bag or something? I'm only complaining because I have a miserable cold, as does Liv, and I need to pee.It's a good thing the rest of the furniture doesn't have an excretory system.

The other day, the roommate of my friend Criss's daughter called to say he thought something was wrong, since it seemed like she hadn't been out of her room in at least 24 hours. Criss and her husband arrived and had to pick the lock to Ashley's room, finding her unconscious and barely breathing. The EMTs got there quick and Ash has been in the hospital now for a few days. It seems she had a UTI that got out of control and shut down her kidneys, causing a heart attack. Ash is in a coma. Last night she was trying to breathe on her own some and was responding to pain stimuli. Four hours ago, we got a message that Ash's brainstem is swelling, and the doctors are saying that she may wind up in a persistent vegetative state as the best outcome from this (best!).

If anybody has a prayer to send, please do it now. This is Criss's only human child (she rescues rabbits, and one of them, Patience, just died during the midst of all of this, plus one--named Ashleigh--has a UTI, of all things).

No, not in the middle of an Oreo. We've got lots of snow coming down to add to what we got on the weekend. Weather.com says it's 21 degrees outside but it feels like 10, so I'm reluctant to take Olivia out there to play, even though it would probably help us. Run the dogs out there too. I'm sure Skye, who grew up in the UP, would love it. I loves to play in the snow.

Vehicle repairs totally blow. The truck that we'd been missing (it was at the garage) for two weeks came back yesterday but it's giving us crap today so it needs to go back. Trouble is, it requires two people to do that, and Matt's at work. And either way we have to take Olivia with us. Hopefully it's a quick fix, but I don't know ... that's not how our luck has been running, what with the $1500 bill for the new tranny, the non-selling Rochester house, and FEMA/SMBA not giving us any money to cushion the blow of having to repair said Rochester house from flood damage (DAMN-age).

Can you tell I'm not in the best mood?

All I want is to eat lots of chocolate and read Harry Potter until I pass out. Is that so much to ask?

Just an itemization for the middle of a long, long week:

I miss Matt
We're doing okay
I have a headache
Liv had a long nap today, I did not
I want to go to bed, Liv does not
I miss Matt
Apocalypto is an interesting but very violent movie
It's cold outside, which makes letting the dogs out loads of fun
I have company coming tomorrow (a playdate for Liv and me)
I have four baskets/containers of laundry to do before company
Shiloh smells bad, although she has smelled worse
I miss Matt
I want a nice, long shower that doesn't involve keeping one eye open to make sure Liv doesn't get into anything while she's locked in the bathroom with me and where no one flushes the toilet twice and laughs
It'd also be nice to put things away and have them stay put for more than five minutes after I spend a lot of time cleaning them up (there are My Little Ponies flying around the room right now)

I think when Matt comes home I'm going to take a nice long bath and finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Okay, so I'm not even halfway through the almost 750-page book, and that'd be an extraordinarily long bath, but a bath is still really appealing.

Oh, and I called my brother to grumble at him for encouraging me to watch Pushing Daisies, even though I was reading books over most of it, because it was very entertaining and just the kind of thing I would like to watch. So I watched it.

Anyway, Liv has paused in her tornado-like activities to pull my shirt up, so maybe I'll be able to convince her to go to sleep. Wish me luck (the good kind, not just general luck, which could be either good or bad). And ow. I need to trim this girl's nails!

So I was wondering what Hallmark had for the Star Trek ornament this year, since we have all of them from the very start. Turns out it's the "future Enterprise" from Next Gen:

http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product%7C10001%7C10051%7C761990%7C-2;-107988;153052;168552;168559%7C%7CP1R2SO%7Cproducts

Maybe it's just me, but I think they just aren't trying anymore.

It's a simple truth: if you have no butt, your pants will not stay up. Liv is tooling around downstairs with her diaper and pants around her ankles. She shimied out of them while playing with her shaker eggs. She's now playing the tambourine with a pair of maracas ... and there go the pants!

that ants can ride horses (if both of them are puzzle pieces in an alphabet puzzle), and VW bugs like cereal bars (at least, the HotWheels kind do)(but the blueberry filling gets stuck in the inside of the wheels).

Oh what fun it is to be a single parent. Liv's been mostly good, meaning she's been a two-year-old. The only real trouble she's been in is when she pulled leaves off my schefflera plant and when she started playing with the rat litter when I was cleaning the cage. Nothing like stopping her from putting a dirty food bowl full of rat litter and poop to her mouth just in time. Blech.

Oh, and I learned (again) that I like living here at the new place. I was out refilling the bird feeders, and a nuthatch sat there eating as I took the feeders off one stand. It only flew away as I moved to the next stand--I was within three feet of it. And as I walked back into the house, I heard a strange noise. Looking up, I saw four swans flying past, presumably on their way to one of the lakes nearby for the evening. :)

Enjoy the Olivia pics (she's currently chewing on my hair)