Category Archives: Family

How I Spent My Saturday III

Until yesterday, I had never been inside a semi truck. You know, the kind with the 7-foot cab ceiling and the little walkspace and the bed in the back, and a refrigerator and TV & stuff.

Well, #1 Son had to get his truck ready to go. He leaves tonight for his first-ever solo haul, and Mama Fink is proud. He needed some prep work done on what will be his full-time office and part-time home from here on out, so he and I — along with Jake — went to the truck yard to get it all ready to fly.

Then, there was some school work done. Then, this. You don’t say.

Today, I’m having coffee with a friend from high school. Brad (the guy on the left) was my lab partner in chemistry class, and we were in other school functions together. He is now a managing director for the company named in the photo.

It’ll be great to catch up. And since he’s on my Facebook friend list, I can leave the 10-lb. Jake/Justin photo album at home. Always a good thing.

Happy Sunday, fiends. Your Fink hearts you.

Wet Weekend

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Blah. Hate the cold and rain in August. But hey, it’ll beat the heck out of 93 and humid tomorrow. And speaking of beating…why is it that the Tribe waits until it doesn’t matter anymore to start winning games?

Had another sleepover with Jakey last night. We played and wore each other out. Keeps me young. And don’t you know, I looked all over town for a simple oversized bat, ball and free-standing tee this morning (the Indians need a lot of help so I thought I’d start batting practice early), and nobody had one. Off to Mansfield.

As many of you know, I had a test at the hospital (all results normal, yay), and they shot me full of iodine to light up my innards. Well of course, as has been the case in the dozens of surgeries I’ve had over the years, they couldn’t find a vein in one arm after digging around a while, so they abandoned that effort and tried the other arm. Lovely. I am grossed out daily. Jake pointed at my arms this morning and said, “Uh-oh.” Indeed.

So what’s everyone up to this weekend? Playing around? Traveling? Knitting one’s dog or cat hair into a scarf? Share.

Wild Weekend

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I gotta get in shape or somethin.

When people tell you that grandchildren wear them out — believe it. It’s the good kind of worn out, though. I guess I should say they keep me young. Or wishing I was.

I think back to when Seamus and Lars were little and I wonder how I pulled it off, day after day after day. Then I go, “Ahhh…you were 24. No wonder it was easier.” A quarter-century later — not so good. Still, we loved every minute of Jake this weekend. We went to the park, played in the back yard, read a gazillion books, played the piano, took a walk, grocery shopped, chased each other around, antagonized Rousseau, and played cars.

At 10 p.m., he rested.

I’m upset that my photos of the Thriller’s birthday bash didn’t turn out very well. My Storm and the red walls of my dining room didn’t play well together. Shoulda used the regular camera instead. Suffice it to say that it was a fabulous feed, and the birthday boy got lots of great gifts, not the least of which was getting to spend several hours with the family, which we don’t get to do nearly often enough. Thanks to all the RtB fiends who wished him a happy birthday, too. I think he’s finding that 58 isn’t so bad after all, which bodes well for the rest of us. (Except if you’re RD, in which case you’ve been there and done that. :-))

Fink (I make “old” jokes whilst I still may because time’s running) out.

Timmy and J.D. at it again

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And it’s based on one of my all-time faves: Dark Shadows.

PK and I both saw the same article that quoted Burton confirming the rumor at Comic-Con last week.

You know, you either love TB/JD movies or you hate them. I’ve never spoken to anyone who had a resolutely ambivalent view. Maybe that person is reading this now — if so, feel free to weigh in. (Not that it will make me adore JD any less…)

Burton and Depp are pigeonholed lately; maybe it’s their own fault. Probably is. But why not do what you do best? People can yammer on about it being the “same old thing,” but let’s face it: these boys are wealthy beyond what you and I could likely ask or think, da? Somebody likes their stuff. So what’s the problem? Ah, I know. Everybody need a little schadenfreude in their day once’t in awhile. They want to see successful people fail.

Clearly, not everyone is a fan. I laughed when I read this comment on the above article:

Johnny Depp is a talentless egomaniac who makes puerile remakes of classic movies in a never-ending quest for the almighty dollar. Tim Burton is also a talentless hack, so the two were made for each other.

Personally, I could substitute any number of actor/director names – couldn’t you? It’s all good, and opinions are like…well, you know. Anyway, back to Dark Shadows.

I listed it as #9 on my Top Ten TV Shows According to Me post over a year ago. (Of course, that was before I started really getting into Mad Men.) If you read through the explanation of the Barnabas character over at Wikipedia, you will see what a complicated and unusual series it was for the late sixties/early seventies. I never missed a single episode if I could help it. It was great because it came on at like 3:30, along with other soaps. Fortunately, my mom’s soap operas were over with by that time, so Mavis and I came in from outside faithfully every weekday to watch it. I’m surprised she let us, truthfully, what with all manner of evil and vampires and scary moments and zombies & such in every episode. I was like eight years old when I started watching it.

Although I sport a small bias, I think JD will be equally dreamy and creepy as Barnabas Collins. So what if it’s another remake? Haters, anyhow.

Hey, Jake and I had a ball yesterday. He loves his alphabet computer game. Such a lil genius…

Mavis comes over today, and we’re starting the lasagna for the feast tomorrow night. Like me some Italian food. Thank the gods it’s Finkday — have some fun this weekend, fiends. Happy Birthday to the Thrilla….

Photo credit: Jeff Vespa, WireImage

Long overdue

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Long overdue: my phone conversation with dear fiend and Finkville citizen, Suzanne! She and her husband are visiting the states from the Netherlands, and she called me last night from her mom’s home in Michigan. A 48-minute treat that was.

Suzanne and her dashing Dutchman Harold are wonderful people who met “online” and have turned their relationship into a 10-year success story. I “met” both of them on the #newbies channel on the IRC network of chat servers (for those who don’t know and don’t want to wade through the link: it’s kind of like Instant Messenger, but you can see dozens of folks talking all at once. It’s basically what AOL calls a “chat room,” only for people with brains).

We, along with the Thriller, were channel operators, helping people new to IRC get acclimated to software and network issues. It was fun and I think the four of us can say we met a lot of cool people from all over the world.

Suzanne was in my wedding, flying all the way from California to Florida to be with us. [Remember when your dress got lost in shipping and we had to get you another one, last minute? That was not stressful AT ALL…]

We have a lot of funny stories and some great memories. She is a super fiend, and top-drawer in my book.

Well looky there Oh yeah, and her wedding back in 1999…who’s the cute little piano player?

Make sure you check out their website for the story in Suzanne’s words, as well as some great pictures to look at: hettenvan.com.

I will let you all know about my Mary Poppins experience. I hope I won’t need a spoonful of…well, nevermind.

Rockin' the Bourgeoisie

Your friend Rat Fink fires the neurons at random