Wisteria Lane it is not...

... but there IS some pretty nice wisteria blooming in my hunk of the hood. This vine is in my front yard.



Hope it lasts a little longer.

This one's for you, Pete

My brother-in-law, Pete, doesn't want his two boys in the vicinity of anything too girly. I'm surprised he lets them play with Lexi.


Pete did not join his family on its trip to Wichita this weekend, so when Joe agreed to put on Lexi's tutu, I took advantage of the situation.


That boy can twirl!


Pretty soon, he was INTO it. Lexi let him try on one of her new pretty dresses she got this weekend.


Sorry, dad.

Front-row seat

Gridiron is back. I presume I will see all of you there. Right? RIGHT? If you're on the fence, just ask yourself if you really want to miss this:


Oh, yes. I'm sorry, but they did.


Lexi came with me to dress rehearsal tonight because she wanted to see Jaime and Bon on stage. Don't worry, she didn't get the jokes she wasn't supposed to get. In fact, when the toilet skit was over, she had just one question. Why didn't those boys use the toilet paper?


She enjoyed the Orpheum as much as she did the "dancing kids wearing dress-up" (her description of the cast.) I showed her a bunch of secret tunnels in the theater, and we took a gaze off the balcony.


We went home at intermission and had a serious talk about how she must never become a journalist -- certainly not a dancing one in dress-up.

12-legged love

Okay, so I know I should not be putting this up. So I'm sorry.

But how many people are able to witness ant sex in their own homes? And how many of those have been trained on the macro setting on their camera by Jaime so they have some idea what to do when they witness ant sex in their own homes?

I'm just sayin.

Arb boogie

Lexi does not like to be photographed, filmed or sometimes even looked at by her dear old mom. In this fine example, shot yesterday, she starts to boogie then moves out of the way and shoots me a "look" when she realizes what I'm up to.

Songs from the garden

I took Lexi to hear Robin and Carter perform at the Arb today. Except getting a little sunburned (but only one one small part of one cheek) she had a great time.


Here's the band at work.


It was hot out there, but Lexi kept cool with the picnic her cool mom packed for her.


When she got bored, we went sniffing.



It takes flexibility to be a good sniffer.


I won't even try to guess what Lexi is thinking here.

Power outage

BEER in the newsroom???


POKER in the newsroom?????


Generally uncontrolled frivolity in the newsroom?????????


It can only mean one thing. The power went out in the newsroom for about an hour and a half this afternoon, and work came to a standstill. That was a good thing. Everybody took a break, had some fun and learned a few things about their co-workers. Behind Dan and I, Suzannne is hearing several unpublishable stories about Aunt Bitchy.

Good times.

Dental drama averted

Today was Lexi's first visit to the dentist's office, a day she has been dreading since that awful moment when she was 2 and I (and a Dora book that was supposed to make the dental process seem LESS scary) first made her aware of the existence of the dentist. For months she would cry and say, "I'LL GO WHEN I'M 3!!!!"

When she turned 3, she ran out of arguments. So this morning, it was just a bunch of tearful, "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE DENTIST!!!!"

But things went well when we got there. The dental assistant was funny and warm and made Lexi laugh with a monkey video and by squirting water across the room with a dental instrument. Getting the floor wet on purpose ALWAYS works on kids.

Lexi actually laughed during her appointment and voluntarily opened her mouth for the dentist to take a look.

I was... relieved.

Perks of the job

Today, I judged a Hannah Montana look-alike contest at the Kidfest event at Century II. Why did I accept this job? I'm still not sure. But it was Hannah-larious.


There were 82 girls entered, but only about 60 of them showed. They ranged from about age 4 to 14. Last time I saw this many blond wigs, Gridiron was doing a Martha Stewart skit.


Here I am with my co-judges, Joe Sauer from the band 3 Ring Circus and John Spear, formerly of KEYN. We had philosophical differences.


The prize was a trip for four to Disney World, and I sort of wanted it to go to one of the adorable little kid entrants. Maybe not the one giving me the stinkeye.


They preferred the more grown-up Hannah, and I was outvoted. The 13-year-old girl on the right was the winner.


Not fun making little girls cry. But the winner was happy.

Vega$, baby

The fitness challenge (and thank GOD the sugar ban) are over. Sadly, the sugar ban was a failure. I only lost a pound. But the rest of the ladies lost much more.

I won't say how much cuz that's there business, but I was impressed with my partners Lori, Bonnie and Carrie. (Molly didn't get to join because she has no pounds to lose.) Here we are right after our weigh-in, piling my pound back on at On The Border.


That's also where we discussed our plans to go to Vega$, even though we didn't win the challenge. If we can find a single day this year Bonnie's not booked, that is.

The three pointer

Rock Chalk!

... and I don't say that lightly because I'm STILL not clear what exactly it means, and if we're being honest, it's a kind of cheesy thing to say. Nonetheless, ROCK CHALK!!!! KU WINS THE FINAL FOUR. What a great night.

I blogged live from the Fox and Hound bar, where a bunch of KU fans were gathered. You can read my musings if you have absolutely nothing better to do.


LAL came along to help me and ended up getting most of the quotes and photos I used. Constant blogging requires butt to be glued to chair. Though my butt did a bunch of jumping around at the end. Here's LAL with our waitress, Burgandy, who also happens to be the kickass manager of the Riverside Perk who recently decided to make it smoke-free.


And a lovely sentiment sent to me by a lovely fellow Chalker midway though the game.

YAY!

Perfect weather

You know that magical period in between spring and summer, when it's warm enough to be outside but the bugs aren't birthed yet?

Tonight, Joe and Carrie had us over to their back porch to soak it in.

The chef, a.k.a. "Big Joe" (to Lexi), on the grill.


The chef and I split an entire bottle of Rosado Malbec. Good stuff. He says I had more. I kinda believe him.


Okay, so I didn't realize till I downloaded the pics that the chef had observed this totally dorkin' out moment.

Twirly

When I was a little girl, I loved twirly skirts, too. Who am I kidding? I still do.

Bought Lexi this one on super sale at a store on Denver. Thought she could play dress-up with it. The girl loves to twirl.





\

It's 7:30 a.m.

Why is it, dear Lexi, that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday -- when we have to get going -- I have to beg, plead and threaten to get you out of bed before 8 a.m. But on SUNDAY, you're rarin' to go at 7 a.m.???

WHY???????????

YES!!!!!

It takes so little...

...to brighten up a depressing Wednesday afternoon. This particular Wednesday afternoon, Suz-E Sourpuss let us all give her new glasses a spin.