Big Sandy Bottom Best of 2006

Well I think it's safe to say that we here at Big Sandy Bottom are relieved to be done with 2006. It hasn't been the best of years, we've suffered some tragic losses, but I've decided to focus on some of the positives rather than getting mawkish and sentimental. So without further ado, it's time for our annual....

The Best of 2006

(the usual caveat applies - these are merely things that I enjoyed in 2006, not necessarily things that were released in 2006. This is my world, and in my world things don't exist 'til I discover them.)

Best website interchange:
A relative of mine wrote the letter that started this little interchange. I offer no other comment. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/02/inebriated_hill.html

Best Reads:
Pigtopia, by Kitty Fitzgerald. Not since Charlotte's Web have I cried so much over pigs. This is a seriously weird book, but I read it in one sitting beginning to end very late one night and bawled my eyes out.
The Manhunt, by James L. Swanson. I enjoy reading thrillers and this true story of the search for Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth is better than fiction.
The Adventures of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson. Maybe not quite as funny as his travel writings, but a great read nonetheless.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Didn't think it was possible that a book about 9/11 could make me smile, but Foer pulls it off.

Worst Read:
It is a bad, bad book indeed that I can't finish. I will read most anything, but I couldn't for the life of me plow through The Shroud of the Thwacker, by Chris Elliot. I thought that I would enjoy this book, because I actually like Chris Elliot and it looked really silly. I don't know how it ends, and I don't care.

Best Movies:
Borat
I'm sorry if this makes me a bad person, but I saw this movie twice and laughed until I cried.
V for Vendetta
Natalie Portman, guys in scary masks, lots of explosions, a not too subtle message about oppression and censorship. Works for me.
Little Miss Sunshine
Great art? Nope. Fun to watch? You betcha.

Best Scary-Ass Movie:
The Descent
In the words of Olivia - "Spelunking is officially off my to-do list."

Best Music:
I Don't Feel Like Dancing, The Scissor Sisters.
THEY might not feel like dancing, but everytime I hear this song, I do. Ask my family.
How to Save a Life, The Fray.
I like this album, okay! Don't give me a hard time about it.
Crazy, Gnarls Barkley. Ha Ha Ha, bless your soul! Rare hit song that is actually pretty damn good music too.
Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks. Politics aside, (I happen to agree with them - what could be more American than being able to think and say whatever they damn well please? Okay maybe I'm not so good at putting politics aside), this a great album. Special Bonus: Neil Finn is a guest artist! A friend of Neil Finn is a friend of mine.

TV Favorites
Heroes
Wow, I love this show. Totally replaced "Lost" in my world. Heroes doesn't take itself so seriously and it's a lot more fun. Plus it has Masi Oka, and how can you not love a show with the tagline "Save the cheerleader, Save the world." Only dilemma: once "24" starts up again, I will have to choose between my two favorite shows on Monday nights.
Runner-ups: Survivor. Yes, it's showing its age, but this season was a lot of fun, mostly due to Jonathan, Ozzy and Yul. America's Next Top Model: my guilty pleasure. I know this show totally sucks, that's why I love it!

Why my kids don't go to public schools anymore
Cinco de Mayo - May 6th! (Cunha Intermediate School Billboard , Half Moon Bay, California)

Best Cat
Just to piss Eric off, I'm going with Dishes.

Best Live Performance

A tough category this year. Toss up between the following:

• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
• Guster at the Berkeley Center
• "Not Me" performed by four incredibly talented tri-school students in Aida.
• Eric's Milkshake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfBarRFGoXI (Insider Tip: If you click this link, and then click "view more by this user" you can also watch a totally awesome video of Olivia and Raquel on "nerd day" during a pie eating contest.

Why I love my job

This is an actual memo I received here at work. Names have been removed. Typos have not.


"The mayor has requested that the quality of toilet paper be improved. Please immediately purchase and begin using a better quality of toilet paper to ensure that the quality of life for all employees is improved. Feel free to send the remaining poor quality toilet peper to storage for our next City auction. The mayor also commented on the poor quality of paper towels. Please order a better quality of paper towels also. Thanks for your help."

Leaving' on a Jet Plane....(apologies for the weird formatting, I had some trouble with the photos)

Last night, as I was purchasing a dozen mini-slinkies for a ransom payment for Olivia's toy airplane, I had a moment where I thought "is it just my family? Why do these weird things happen to us? Do we put something out into the karmic universe that sends weird stuff our way?"

Because, honestly...have YOU ever had to purchase a dozen mini-slinkies to meet ransom demands of any sort, much less ransom demands for a toy airplane that your teenage daughter keeps in her purse? I'm guessing the answer to that is no. Probably because you're normal, and our family...isn't.

Let's back up a bit. Somewhere along the line, I think while helping Mike with a school project, Olivia acquired a tiny toy airplane. She named it "Jet" and started carrying it around in her purse. How its existence became known to her classmates I don't exactly know. My guess is that she probably played with it in class or something...

On Friday, Olivia noticed that Jet was missing. On the school's general message board the following was posted:

In my opinion, 14 bucks is a pretty high ransom for a .97 cent airplane, but Olivia decided to pay it. She duly stuffed 14 dollars into an envelope and taped it inside the appropriate bathroom stall. As she left the school, a girl totally unknown to her handed her another note:

Olivia realized (as most politicians and diplomats know already) that you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists, because they are untrustworthy. So she ran back into the bathroom and managed to retrieve her envelope of cash despite the fact that the stall containing the cash also contained a presumably confused student who was just minding her own business.

There's a couple funny things about this whole situation. First of all, the whole thing is driving Olivia NUTS. She is the ultimate insider, always the instigator of jokes, not the butt of them. The fact that she can't figure out who the kidnapper is (or kidnappers, because it's quite possible this is a conspiracy) is making her crazy. Apparently her entire school knows about the kidnapping, and knows the identity of the heinous criminal(s) too.

Also, I find it amusing that the kidnapper feels compelled to comment on Olivia's appearance. So is the kidnapper hitting on Olivia? Or just trying to soften the blow of losing her beloved friend by saying she's pretty?

In the meantime, Jet has managed to set up a "myspace" http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=136679308

and acquired 95 "friends", including the ubiquitious Tom, who is everybody's friend on myspace. Jet has a profile, and even a photo album on myspace. Many of Jet's "friends" have posted inspiring messages. (My personal favorite ends with "Courage, jet.") If you have a myspace account, please ask to be added to Jet's "Friends" list. I myself have been rejected, for reasons unknown.

After seeing the efforts that Jet's captors have gone through, we decided that this little escapade needs to continue. Hence, our purchase of 12 mini-slinkies. The captors have no idea who they're messing with, because Eric and I are already plotting several responses to the kidnapper's demands. I have access to the highest levels of local government. Previous experience in kidnapping items. No life, and therefore endless amounts of time to plot. This should be good....

Santa's Frosty Follies

Part 1 of a special report from guest correspondent Kristina Krow. She has promised me that next year I can attend this little event with her. I can hardly wait....


Santa's Frosty Follies
It's that time of year again when you get invited to holiday musicals, plays and recitals. Many of us have attended the delightful productions starring our extremely smart, talented and good-looking offspring. Through the years I have attended Sue's Performing Stars recitals, complete with an adult red-headed little person who was a beginner ballerina; various holiday shows from This Side of the Hill Players, most notably some crazy one about a Toy Factory; the Spindrift School "Knight's tale" starring my nephew the dragon; numerous Ragazzi, The Peninsula Boys Chorus (actually you have to say it like that: "Ragazzi, The Peninsula Boys Chorus"...you must never just say Ragazzi) performances in malls and at drafty old churches; and even the Urban School Circus with my kid on the trapeze. Hee Ha!

This year we experience the most daring and delightful expression of holiday cheer...yes, once again the Lincoln Hills Players offered us their rendition of "Santa's Frosty Follies" starring my Mother and Father in-laws (who for the record - I am very fond of). It was more than bad, it was painful. It was an assault to all my senses. It was long, 2 hours and 40 minutes of pure horror. During the single intermission Noah pitched a fit, kicked things and said the F-word because we made him go back in for the second half.

A little background before I continue....My mother and father in law live in this retirement community called Lincoln Hills. click here for more info:
http://www.delwebb.com/homefinder/Community.aspx?ID=100007
It's like a resort, with non-stop activities from Mah-Jong to softball, trips, and tap dancing, fitness, golf, tennis, craft classes..just about anything you could think of. My in-laws (MIL and FIL) have been involved with the shows there for about 3 years. MIL tap dances and she is very cute. Many of her fellow tappers are over 70 with one actually in her 90's. Check out the gams on the blue hairs. FIL enjoys singing and thinks of himself as quite the MC. So that brings you up to speed. They love this stuff and their year revolves around when the shows are and the rehearsal schedule etc.

This year we got the command demand for our presence from the in-laws, it was must see, and we must be in the audience for one of the 5 performances of "Santa's Frosty Follies." Have you ever seen Waitingfor Guffman? Well, hold onto that vibe.

MIL and FIL are theproducers of this show, it says so on the program, we are related to the producers of this show. They are way into this.

Our day started with a 3 hour ride in traffic to get to the show. The line of ticket holders stretched through the lobby of the clubhouse and was as long a football field. We arrive in time to get in to the very end of the line as the doors are opened, securing ourselves a seat in the back of an auditorium holding more than 500 people. 500 hundred people bought tickets to this. The program is opened and we see the list of 24 acts. Some include grandchildren of the residents.
There is an older boy along with all the cute little kids, he is awkward and humiliated by being forced to participate with Grams and Gramp in the show, we applaud more loudly just for him, and breathe a sigh of relief that no one asked Noah to be in this.

We counted down the acts. "Ok only 9 more to go until intermission, alright just 8 1/2 more to go. Hang in there only 8 left." There were too many to remember, they have blurred together or have I simply blocked them out. There was Leroy the Red-Neck Reindeer, Pinky and her gang of elves with a Christmas rap; we were treated to dancing trees, that looked like the Stanford mascot, no purpose, they just dancing and elves danced with them, to the Nutcracker. Hanukkah was represented and a nativity scene, no reference to Kwansaa though. Santa, Mrs.
Clause (double cast) were part of the show along with the hosts Mr. and Mrs. Cane - Candy and Clavin. Candy always called Calvin by his pet name "Shuggy". Or Shuggy Wuggy (ooh I think I just threw up a little in my mouth) . We were told at the beginning of the show that the actress playing Candy Cane has lost her voice, so she would only be mouthing the words, and a disembodied voice over the loud speaker would serve up Candy's lines. Almost like watching a Japanese monster movie, Candy's mouth wasn't moving in sync with the words, but oh well the show must go on.

In my opinion there were just too many elves. There were 6 Regular elves and 4 Sparkle elves. A Sparkle elf has a slightly different fashion sense wearing a silver puffy vest and glitter all over. Those Sparklers are in charge of making the high tech toys, in case you didn't know. My FIL was a Sparkle elf named Sebastian. A funny thing about these 65+ year old elves, they all talked like babies. Mithes Clath hath thum cookies for uth in her bakawee. Do you wanth acookie? Lets thneak the cookies. Be vawe vawe careful. Thebasthin, where are you? So these darn elves spend the whole 2 hours and 40 minutes running around talking with speech impediments, and asking about f-ing cookies every 5 minutes. It was woven into every act. I could not believe my FIL had agreed to play this part - he was the dumb elf! Hard to believe he was saying this stuff, and I shuddered at the thought that he may have actually written some of dialogue.

SPOILER ALERT -


In the end we find that Sebastian the Sparkle only spoke with that terrible lisp is because he had a large piece of toffee stuck in his teeth the whole time. At one point I put my head down between my knees and plugged my ears. I could still hear the babyish elf voices, I wanted to scream but got the giggles instead. Friends of this blog will remember when I got the giggles at an outdoor movie, at a very important part of the story, in fact a very inappropriate time to get the giggles. These same friends know that my giggles once released can not be contained. Snorting usually follows, and then chaos and mass hysteria. So it was at the follies, a yawn led to the dam being broken open, full snortage occurred, and much snickering. A lull would come over me for a moment, only to burst forth again with the snort, giggle, shaking and quivering, it looks like a convulsion. I later apologized to the man next to us, thinking I had ruined his experience and he said he didn't notice as he was also trying to contain himself.