Stephanie Cake

So I finally finished The Half Blood Prince. Wow. I won't provide any spoilers here but I must say it was quite suspenseful. I felt like I needed a drink when I was done. For all you non-Harry Potter fans out there who are pelting insults of "nerd", "geek" and whatnot... bite me. I know its not classic literature but it is a good story and you can't knock that.

Additionally, there is a certain person I know who claims her 8 year old read it in less than a week. While I can marginally believe it (afterall, I remember slogging through much more adult literature at the age of 9 or 10), I have a really hard time with the boasting of this person. First of all, I honestly doubt this parent has the tenacity and intellect to read the book herself... plus I really question the decision making of this parent in that the content of this book is a little more adult than previous volumes. There is quite a bit of blood and gore. And much snogging. And Harry has a few post-puberty fantasies about a young lady. It all adds up to something I wouldn't let Connor read, if he actually had the patience to do so. At least not for another few years.

Ok. Stepping off my high and mighty soap box now.

Got some stuff posted at EBSQ.... click here, already!

Also have some ATC's up at ACEO.... go on, you know you wanna.

So I took Connor to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this past weekend. I was skeptical because the Baltimore Sun had published a review that wasn't particularly flattering. I should have known better.... it was awesome! Totally creepy. Much closer to the novel than the Gene Wilder version although screenwriters took some artistic license w/ a back story and additional stuff at the end.
Unfortunately, I can't find an online version of the review to link to but I think I remember the writer slamming on the trippy overproduction of the factory scenes w/ the Oompa-Loompas (creepily portrayed by a single actor - Deep Roy) and the weird persona Johnny Depp gave Willy Wonka.... its sad that entertainment writers don't bother to become well read or do any research into their subjects. I think Tim Burton did a brilliant job with the movie and totally captured the intentions of Roald Dahl.
Roald Dahl's adult fiction is filled with all kinds of sexual perversion and misogyny - I think its highly ironic that Depp's portrayal of the amazing chocolatier has been compared to a caricature of Michael Jackson.

So the car trouble was just the radiator... a huge crack in the radiator to be specific. $500+
And then I ended up having an emergency root canal last Monday from a dentist who doesn't take insurance. $1000+ And then I paid my state and federal quarterly taxes. $5000+
My craptacular life. PRICELESS.

On an alternate vein my dad called me a week ago.

So I'm on my way down to Rockville to G Street Fabrics to get more chiffon to finish the dance costume commission I'm working on when the Toyota dies. No warning. Connor and I had gone to Taco Bell and had just hit 695. I was in the middle lane and I noticed a funky little clickety-whining noise when I let off the gas pedal and the next thing I knew all my warning lights were on and the car was no longer running.

Thank god I was able to coast over to the shoulder safely and didn't spend any time blocking a lane. Traffic was a bitch but I got an opening at just the right time. And thank goodness I was just between Randallstown and Security and not in Rockville or on the Capital Beltway. And praise the lord that I'm off work this coming week.

As irritated as I am about it, I needed to have the brakes checked anyway. And the tow truck driver said he thinks it may be radiator related because he said there was antifreeze under the car. That the noise could have been antifreeze on a belt. My first thought was that it had run out of oil (despite the fact that I checked it on my way back from PP the other day) and the engine had locked up. So maybe its nothing as horrible as that.

Today was a practice in patience and stress management. Time and time again I prove to myself that I can get by without freaking out. And life will go on. And everything will be ok. Its a shame that I won't remember that feeling of relief next time.

I must have been living under a rock but Papa John's has online ordering. Why didn't I think about this sooner????

Last nite, after a hellacious drive home from Piney Point (and the ensuing nap that was necessary) I rolled off the couch and created a Papa's account. 10-keyed the old AMEX # and 20 minutes later I was dining on a pie that was still too hot to chew.

Its good to be lazy.

Life goes by entirely too quickly. I was driving Connor home from the pool recently and I was running through this long list in my head of all the shit I needed to get done. And Connor was finding creatures and shapes in the clouds and the trees and so I started trying to look with him and I thought about how much I miss being a kid. Not having any worries. Having my whole life ahead of me. Finding bunnies and bears in the shapes of the clouds instead of worrying about paying the bills and returning calls.

Don't get me wrong. I mostly like my life. At least at the moment. I just don't feel like I have the time to enjoy anything. Totally flies in the face of my job. All week long I teach tolerance and decision making and change management and I think I am the poster child for the struggle. I rarely practice what I preach.

Yesterday I found out that my dad got remarried recently. How nice to get an invitation, I thought. I just wanted to have a tantrum about it. How could he?! I don't care that he's re-married. I know her and if she makes him happy then I'm happy for him. I have no deep seated delusion about my parents being back together -- in fact it creeps me out to think about that. But how could he not tell me that he was making this change in his life??

I'm his only child. But he hasn't talked to me in almost 4 years. I send him Christmas cards and Father's Day cards and birthday cards. But I never hear from him. Adulthood sucks. If I was a kid I could cry about it and someone might console me. When you're an adult, no one cares when you're devastated. No one cares when you're sad. You're supposed to get over it or pay for therapy.

I know its totally selfish but I just want someone to tell me its all going to be ok. And know that it is. And mean it. I want someone to take my emotional burdens and slow down time so I can enjoy life. I want permission to have fun and not worry. I want to stop crying alone.