Hey peeps, happy Thanksgiving from Casa de (e:jbeatty)! I think this may be the first estrip post I've actually made from Buffalo.

As some of you have already heard, my mom had a stroke recently, so I was home in VA until yesterday. Mom is expected to make a full recovery, though, since she got to a hospital right away, and the stroke doesn't seem to have affected her mentally much, if at all. She still has limited movement on her left side, but she's improving a lot every day. There's not much I can do for her while she is still in her inpatient rehab program, so we've continued on our planned T-giving trip to visit jbeatty in this fine city (I'll be heading back to FL on Sunday, then back to VA in a week or so).

We are eating and drinking ourselves into a food coma. I think (e:john) is in charge of blogging all the food porn pics we're taking today. He's planning on starting that in a minute, I think, so keep an eye on his blog.

Well. It was snowing a minute ago, and I was so excited. John was telling everyone in FL that we were going to visit the snow for Thanksgiving, and there is entirely not enough snow here yet. I know it's supposed to snow a lot tomorrow, tho', but we are driving to Syracuse then, so I hope the Thruway doesn't get too bad.

Ok, jbeatty wants his laptop back, so I have to go. Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

Hey, did anyone here hear about a Laura Linney/Philip Seymour Hoffman film that was shooting in Buffalo like, last winter or so?

I just saw the film tonight at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (at which I have been volunteering for the past week or so). It's called The Savages, and here it is on the IMDB:

It's set mostly in Buffalo in the winter, and the city looks suitably grey and depressing. Is there really a place called the Valley View Rehabilitation Center? Is it really a nursing home?

Anyway, parts of the movie are brutally depressing and hard to watch (it's about these kids who have to put their estranged father in a nursing home, so yeah), but it's got a hopeful and satisfying (but still realistic) ending. It's also got a fantastic portrayal of a particular family dynamic that's not often explored on screen. LL and PSH are great, as usual.

I've been wondering this for a while: why's it still showing that I'm posting from Syracuse, NY, if I changed my zip code in my profile to show that I'm in Florida now? Is there somewhere else I'm supposed to change my zip?

Also, hi! I'm back from my trip to California. It was fun. But now I've got a houseful of crap to clean/put away, and tons of other stuff to do. So blogging will have to wait.

I mentioned to (e:jbeatty) a few days ago that I had news I wanted to post... but I was trying to leave a little space for people to find my post inviting y'all to our fantasy hockey league on Yahoo - (e:lizabeth,41048) - as of now, no one has taken me up on that invitation... (what? No one at all on this site wants to play fake hockey with us? :( ) But I digress.

My news is this:

I've joined a roller derby league. Yes, like (e:dragonlady7) (whom I will need to hit up for tips, if/when I ever see her on this site again).

We're called the Broward County Derby Grrls, and since we're a new league just starting up, we don't even have teams established yet (though the proposed teams will be called the Ft. Lauderdale Beach Bruisers and the Hollywood Harlots). Here's our myspace page:

I am simultaneously excited and nauseated. I'm an ok skater, but I am a total wuss!! I am going to get my ass beat!!! I will probably break half the bones in my body! I am too old and in too bad shape to do this... yet I'm doing it anyway. Because at least half the people are older and/or worse skaters than I am. And because so far, every other girl I've met who has signed up for this has been really, truly awesome. A couple of them are knitters, too, and they invited me to meetings of their knitting group , so I finally have people to knit with here, too! It's like a billion things all happening at once, and I'm so not ready for them... I'm just riding the wave and trying to hang on.

Did I mention I signed up to volunteer for the film festival , too? And we just found out which (real) hockey games are included in the half-season ticket package we bought. And there's that little issue of our big, cross-country road trip out to CA for K's wedding in early/mid-October... My life has suddenly gotten very, very busy.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a derby name for me (right now my name is Spite Sprite, which is my username on, like, everything but estrip), fire away! Something punny using the word spite would be ideal... and it has to be something that's not already taken on this list:
I obviously have no ideas, so suggestions are welcome.

...and any other Sonic-lovin' peeps.





Ok, that last pic is probably one of the worst pics of me of all time, but you get the idea.

I went to Sonic about 4 times in the space of a week and a half on my recent trip home. I only ate there once - every other time, it was all about the strawberry limeades. The last time I went, I got the glutton-sized one, because who knows how long it will be before I am back in Sonic country?

(Actually, we'll be driving through Texas next month, so I guess I'll get more chances to stop at Sonic then. :D )

It's that time of year again... (e:john) and (e:jbeatty) and some other folks and I have a fantasy hockey league on Yahoo. Our league name is Lake Effect. :)

If any of you are interested in joining us this year, we'd love to have you. Just send me a message and I'll give you the league ID # and password.

Y'all! The best band of all time (ok, ok, my favorite band of all time) is coming to Buffalo! You must go see them!

They Might Be Giants
Buffalo, NY at Town Ballroom
Fri. Nov. 16 (8 PM)
Tickets on sale Sept. 8 (that's today!)

They haven't announced any FL dates yet, and of course 11/16 is a mere five days before I'll be in Buffalo for a visit... argh.

But 11/16 is also the day before (e:carolinian) 's birthday, so someone should take him to this show as his b-day present! :D

Ok, thanks for all the input, everyone! Y'all pretty much said what I was leaning toward, anyway, which is: of course I'm going to do the reading, K is one of my best friends on earth. Even if we are not super-close anymore, we have a lot of History together, and now is not the time for me to get my panties in a bunch. (And to clarify, for those who asked - I'm not a bridesmaid, I'd just be doing a reading. K is only having one bridesmaid, and it is not me, and I am fine with that.) I can ignore Satana (my nickname for S - it rhymes with her real name, and is so revealing of her personality, I think) for as long as it takes. I've got mad acting skillz - I can fake-smile to beat anyone.

So K e-mailed me what I'd be reading - here it is:

[box]Song of Songs 2:8-10.14.16; 8:6-7

Hark! my lover-here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.

My lover speaks; he says to me,
"Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!
"O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely."
My lover belongs to me and I to him;
He says to me:
"Set me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm;
For stern as death is love,
relentless as the nether world is devotion;
its flames are a blazing fire.
Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor floods sweep it away.
The word of the Lord. [/box]

I will admit frankly that this sort of makes me want to gag (but hey, if it makes K happy...). As (e:carolinian) can attest, I am about the least romantic person on the face of the planet - traditional ideas of "romance" generally make me want to retch. I've got enough acting training that I'll be able to get this out with a straight face, but I will be inwardly rolling my eyes while comparing my lover to an African herd animal. In practical terms, I can tell you already the part I will trip over - it's the "nor floods sweep it away" bit. I'm gonna go all Elmer Fudd and say "fwoods sleep," I just know it.

A friend of mine (let's refer to her as "K") is getting married in October. She's asked me to read a Bible verse during the ceremony - one of three verses that will be read by three different friends of hers. One of the other friends (I'll call her "S") is this girl I simply cannot stand. I have disliked her pretty much since the day I met her. She has the world's most annoying laugh (it sounds like she is fake-laughing, but that is her real laugh). She is a minister, and I have no clue how she can lead a congregation or counsel anyone when she is so judgmental, petty, and self-centered. She is married to this total jerk (also a minister, sad to say) who once made fun of me, to my face, in front of a bunch of people when I was drunk because he thought I wouldn't notice. And, horrifyingly enough, I hear these two wretched people have spawned, so there will be a small child in the mix, too (I really don't like kids very much). I was hoping to avoid any real contact with these people for the duration of the celebration, but if I agree to read a verse, that won't be possible. I'll probably even have to sit next to them during the ceremony.

What do I do? I don't want to leave K casting about for someone else to do this reading (she was the maid of honor in my wedding - I don't want to leave her hanging). I certainly don't want S to be in this wedding while I sit on the sidelines. But at the same time, I want this to be a pleasant experience, and I want to be able to enjoy myself, and I'm afraid I might not be able to do that if I can't stop thinking about smacking S's asshole husband in his smug face.

Other factors to consider: I'm not afraid of public speaking, but it has been a while since I've had to do it, and this is going to be a pretty big wedding. I'm not Christian, so the thought of reading from the Bible doesn't exactly thrill me (and no, I don't get to choose the verse, and no, I don't have the option of reading something else instead). If I'm not in the wedding, then I can go to a hockey game (Kings v. Bruins) instead of attending the rehearsal dinner. Just a thought. Your opinions and comments, please.

Well, I have another post I want to make, but until I can find a way to get my pics onto my mom's computer, or to get my computer hooked up to my mom's internet, it will have to wait.

We don't have a TV at home right now - got rid of our crappy ancient set when we left Syracuse, and we haven't replaced it yet. We're not really TV watchers, so the only time we miss it is when we want to watch a DVD and we have to pull out my husband's laptop and set it on the coffee table... Anyway, when I'm home visiting my mom and Nana is about the only time I see TV anymore. TV, especially when you haven't watched it in a while, is truly terrifying.

But I did watch an episode of Globe Trekker today, just for (e:jbeatty) (who totally loves that show and wants to be on it - someone help him make a demo reel already, he'd be great).

BTW - when did my husband get an account at this site?? I know he did it just to be able to comment on (e:jbeatty) 's blog, but still. You'd think he could have at least told me. Oh, this is him: (e:john)

This trip I've been finding some weird connections between me and my grandparents... I found an old notebook of my maternal grandfather's, and it's just crammed with little scribblings and notes and lists - and I've got a ton of little notebooks and scraps of paper - ok, I need to pause this right now because my grandmother is driving me CRAZY and if I don't type about what a pain in the ASS she is, I will kill her, and the murder of a 92-year-old lady never looks good on one's permanent record. She is telling me now that I should be a dentist. "DENTIST!" she just yelled. And she is going on about how you probably don't need to go to school as long to be a dentist as to be a doctor (like she has any clue!), and I just want to throttle her. She can't go more than half an hour without telling me all about what I should do with my life in great detail. And as she is getting old and senile, most of the time now she is just running her mouth without a clue as to what she's saying. It'll be funny when she gets a little crazier, but now it's just frustrating and annoying to have to hear.

But I digress - I was talking about my grandfather and how I've totally got his OCD and it manifests itself in the same ways (particularly notebook-keeping and list-making). I feel a little bad, tho', that I can't read anything he wrote - it's all in Chinese. He's got shelves full of books (all taking up space in my mom's house, right now) that none of us can read - all this great Chinese literature... I wish I'd learned to read it when I was little. I'm trying to pick it up, now, but I need to learn Spanish first, and it's not easy.

Now that I've bitched about Nana, let me just say she is an awesome grandmother when she isn't annoying the crap out of me. She is still living independently at 92, she is the life of any party (you look at old pictures of get-togethers with their circle of friends, and Nana is the one on the floor, rolling with laughter), and she is always a snazzy dresser. I have almost nothing at all in common with her - except - we are both total shoe-oholics. Together, our shoe collections could probably put Imelda Marcos's to shame. She got - ok, wait, I have to interrupt this again - I found Rushmore on TV, so I had it on. She just came in and asked to change it because "I like things with people (in them)" - because Rushmore isn't about people at all. She is now flipping channels and has stopped on the CW and the Pussycat Dolls audition. I don't believe in God, but right now I'm am begging him for the strength to keep myself from killing her. Now she's stopped on Desperate Housewives. I'm sure it's a great show, but I am so not in the mood for it right now, and anyway, Rushmore is better. Like I said - nothing in common but the shoe thing.

Speaking of shoes, there's this pair in the girls' section at Target that I totally want to get. I'm lucky to have small enough feet that I can shop in the kids' shoes section if they've got sizes up to kids' 4.5 or 5, and these particular shoes come in size 5. They're brown maryjanes and they've got about a 1.5-inch chunky heel, and they are so way cute. Do I need them? Well, that depends on your definition of need... :D

I don't know how much coverage the Michael Vick thing is getting up there - I know it's kind of a big story elsewhere, but it's a BIG story here, since Vick is a hometown son. I didn't realize this, but he actually graduated from the same high school as my dad (though obviously years and years apart). It's seriously crazy what-all he did. So unbelievable that shit like that still goes on in this day and age. That's just one of many reasons I think humanity is doomed.

And on that cheery note (which is where most of my trains of thought eventually end up, honestly), I'm going back to Desperate Housewives (yep, it sucked me in).