Tag: 2009 (Page 4 of 10)

MY HERO: Schuyler

June 5, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

My heroes for today are the members of the Rummel Hudson family: Julie, Rob, and Schuyler.

Schuyler was born with an extremely rare brain disease called Bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria. This disorder means that. among other things, Schuyler will more than likely never be able to talk. She uses technology that has been dubbed “BIG Box of words” (it looks like a giant Speak n Spell) .

Despite all these disadvantages, Schuyler has managed to surprise her detractors over and over again. She has basic speech and a higher rating of intelligence than many doctors predicted. She has performed better in school than predicted.

She also manages to be an extremely cheerful child who loves monster movies and monsters in general. She also enjoys a punk rock wardrobe with chucks and brightly colored hair ranging from purple to red. She has an independent streak, evidenced in this her drawing a picture of her sad parents crying when she was to travel cross country on a plane to visit her grandma. SHe also has a funny sense of humor, making her dad dress up like a chicken for Halloween. (he did it too)

Her parents also have an amazingly positive attitude as they struggle to raise Schuyler to be the best she can be while learning the limits of her disability.

Listy Fresh . . . or a list of favorites

June 3, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

Since I like to read, watch movies, and listen to music, I tend to respect those who can write, sing, write songs, write books, and make movies a lot. Those creative artists are my heroes for today. (it’s part of that nablopomo thing)

So here are my list of favorite books

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
East of Eden by John Steinbech
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Movies

Pan’s Labrynth
The English Patient
Shawshank Redemption
Giant
Blue Crush
Amelie
Vertigo
Splendor in the Grass
Kill Bill Volume 1
The Sixth Sense

Music (some of these are albums and some are songs)

When the Pawn . . . by Fiona Apple
August and Everything After by The Counting Crows
A Thousand Kisses Deep by Leonard Cohen (pretty much anything by Leonard Cohen but I’m not familiar with his individual albums)
Adagio in B by Barber
Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones
American Idiot by Green Day (the whole album)
Man of Leisure by the Big Cats
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
Firestarter by Prodigy
Warning Sign by Coldplay

Running day. every day

June 2, 2009 / melissa / 2 Comments

“The Hero lies in you” — Mariah Carey

Tomorrow is National Running Day.

According to the website.

National Running Day is a national initiative whereby many of the major organizations within the running industry are joining forces in an unprecedented unified effort to nationally and locally promote running as a healthy, easy, and accessible form of exercise. The inaugural National Running Day will be Wednesday, June 3.

I ran the Little Rock Half Marathon in March. I must confess that I haven’t stayed on schedule after the post race tapering down phase. I was there for a little while and then it began to rain every day. Well, I’m not going to excuse it. I just didn’t get back to any sort of mileage.

Being a woman who is a chronic list maker, I always manage to take a half year assessment of my life and make a list of the things I want to do in the following year. Sometimes I look at my New Year’s resolutions and see how I’m doing with those. It just depends.

I am very proud for completing the big goal of completing a half marathon. I’m going to start running 4 days a week starting yesterday. There’s another half marathon in Conway around October. I intend to finish that and I want to try the Little Rock Marathon next march. I guess I better get training.

No kitten left hungry.

June 1, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

My family grew up in a 100 year old two story house with a porch and a cellar. The porch was about 3 feet off the ground and as a result, there is about a one and a half foot space between the bottom of the house and the ground. This housed among other things, the heating and cooling system and some wiring. It also proved to be fertile ground for all the knocked up cats in the neighborhood to come and give birth to their broods.

Each time there was a cat hanging around the house, my brother would go outside with a bowl of water and a plate of food. In the beginning it was whatever leftovers he could scrounge up. Eventually, he began to buy some bonafide cat food.

Over the years, my brother has probably fed and housed close to a hundred cats and their kittens. Some made it to be inside pets but most just stayed outside until they got bored with us and moved on.

After last week’s box of kittens episode, my brother was so sad that he went to the shelter and adopted a gray kitten. She’s a little girl cat about a month old. He hasn’t named her yet.

Sunday Mishmash

May 31, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

A special thanks to Blake’s Think Tank for this hilarious rap from some Dartmouth conservatives. Oh yeah they have their own website . Oh, they’re not TRYING to be funny which only makes it more funny.

Athletes at the U of A cheating? hrmmm. Via Arkansas Times

All the drama and stress surrounding sick and dying kittens wore me out. I did, however, get some running in this weekend as well as a substantial amount of sleep. So for me, I guess the weekend was a good one. I signed up for National Blog Month (or whatever its called) so dammit. You folks get daily post for the month of June. OH ROCK!

Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal WOW. Just WOW! I’m not sure what to say about that. (thanks to Blonde Justice)

Update

May 31, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

Even though we washed their eyes, which were full of puss. (oh nasty) We bought kitten formula and little bottles. You can get them at Wal-Mart. We fed them every four hours but slowly throughout the day. They all died. They were all wheezing and full of goo. The last one sneezed and blood came of its nose. It was something they had when we found them that just got the better of their little kitten bodies.

Cat photos!

May 29, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

I love taking pictures. It’s fun to look at something and then capture it with a camera. Since digital makes taking multiple shots inexpensive, I have been fearless in my snapping abilities and have managed to get a decent eye for a good shot.

This is my cat sitting in the front yard. Isn’t it awesome? I like how it’s all green foliage with my cat in the middle.

These are some kittens found in a box in my parents old house. The house itself is empty except for boxes of stuff. They moved from a 2 story house with a lot of square feet to a fairly small one story house. I needed one of my old law textbooks and heard this loud cat noises and found these kittens in one of the empty boxes. They appeared to be days — maybe weeks old. A couple of them still had shut eyes. They appeared to be fed so I left them there and was going to check on them daily. The next day one of them was very weak. It died later that day. Today, there are only two left. They are with my brother now.

It's official

May 27, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

Pat O’Brien is running for Arkansas Secretary of State.

oh

May 26, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

I do not like public restrooms. In fact, you could say that I have a slight fear of them. You know know when you open up the door, what you are going to find. Also, you never know what is going to happen when you pull the little flush lever. Also, you never see a plunger lying around in public restrooms either.

But sometimes, you gotta go. This was the case en route to Riverfest. I stopped at what will be known as an unnamed location en route. This place has tasty snacks and is usually very clean. I noticed that the ladies restroom had an “out of order” sign on the front door and since this is a one toilet per restroom set up, I decided I was going to be a man for 10 minutes.

Y’all. The mens restroom is not like the ladies at all. Somehow the bowl of the white porcelain sink had been stained to a very scary looking beige color. It was scary. Then… OH LORD. Apparently all was not right with the toilet. It appeared to have pap towels in the bowl. I had no where else to go. My bladder was screaming. So I decided to hover, not flush, and tell the cashiers that something is wrong with that bathroom.

So I do just that and as I stand up, I hear this click. I turn around to realize it is an automatic flushing toilet. I then hear this bubble forming like the bowels of hell just farted. This moment still seems to me in slow motion even though it was only two seconds. I watch the bubble as it comes from the bowels of hell to the surface, then I see the water rise and then…

*splash*

THE HORROR

THE HORROR!!!

I quickly pick up my borrowed from someone else messenger back so it won’t be tainted by the hell stew and run outside.

It’s quiet and pleasant just like any old store.

I go to the front to pay for my beverage. There are two people at the cashiers.

I state, “excuse me but there is a problem with the restroom.”

One of the cashiers rolls her eyes and says, “we’ll get to it when we caaaaaaaaaannnn” I can’t properly write out the whine combined with a Southern drawl that turned a three letter word into fifteen syllables. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

I looked at Miss Thang with her hand on her hip and her eye rolling and her “how dare you tell me to do anything than sit my butt up here behind the counter” countenance and I paid for my beverage and walked out of undisclosed location.

For any persons who managed to come upon the bathroom from hell between the time Miss Thang pulled that spoiled brat stick out of her butt and actually did her job cleaning up that shit, I’m sorry.

For Miss Thang. Well she who lives by slinging the shit, dies by cleaning it up.

or something like that.

TIN ROOF RUSTED

May 25, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

This weekend was the outdoor music festival, greasy food, carnival/farmer market style gifts filled extravaganza known as Riverfest. Of course, some people mock Riverfest and think they’re too cool for it. My response, whether or not you go to Riverfest, you still live in Arkansas and as a result, get an automatic -150 X e to the 200,000,000th power added to our cool points scale. Oh and trying to be cool when you’re over the age of 15 screams desperate and sad. So you might as well have some fun.

My main draw this year was my chance to see the B-52s for $12.50. That’s gold right there.

The B-52s have been a mainstay in my CDs and mp3 lists since college when they came out with Cosmic Thing when I was in high school. “Love Shack” was a staple for any party. Their songs are bright, happy tunes (or they at least have a happy beat) that are good for running.

IT’s hard taking a photo in the dark.

It was a great set. It had songs from the really old days like “Rock Lobster” to brand spanking new like “Fun Plex” and everything in between. (that means “LOVE SHACK”) I was in the pit and danced like only a thirty something obese white woman with no rhythm could. It was a damn good time. The interesting thing was the wide range of ages. You could tell that there were people who discovered the B-52s when Rock Lobster came out (late seventies) to the COsmic thing Groupies (90s) to the teenagers who were reintroduced with the release of “FUNPLEX”.

I ended up driving back home and drove back the next day with my brother to check out the festivities again. We went shopping at the farmer’s market in the space that is the farmer’s market at the River Market. Yes that is a lot of “market”s for one sentence. He ended up buying a sterling silver ring.

We walked around the entire thing once for a look see. Immediately, he noticed the crawdad cart.

Of course, this was 3 in the afternoon and he did wait until suppertime.

I have no Riverfest food stories. I think Riverfest bucks are a ripoff and had a good ole gyro from Layla’s.

We walked and talked about things. We usually don’t hang out that much. We’re older and everything. Our lives are in quite opposing paths and as a result, our paths probably wouldn’t cross if we weren’t family. It was a nice time.

We went to see Hinder while we waited for Heart. I discovered that I am not really a Hinder fan and got bored about thirty minutes into the set. Of course, we discovered that the Riverfest bathroom logic is “hey I might need to go pee thirty minutes from now, let me go stand in line” so that worked out A-OK. The upside of the bathroom waiting is that we ran into this man who lived across the street from us when we were ten or so.

Apparently, a lot of other people didn’t like Hinder either.

See this picture. This is the mass exodus of people leaving DURING the Hinder concert.

Hinder ended their set around 8 o’clock. Heart wasn’t set to play until 9:30. This was a LONG excruciating wait. No really. It felt like forever.

Finally Heart came on stage and gave a good show. By this point, I was tired and my feet hurt. My brother was tired and his feet hurt. We ended up admitting we were older than dirt and left early. Yeah we’re losers. Oh and it was raining, too.

Tidbit: Saw Ned Perme. Of course, me being a total dork says “HEY NED PERME” Because people like being called out by their entire name. He waved. har har har…. Celebrity starfucker moment #205.

I’m a total goofball.

I kept seeing people I knew and having little chit chat. It’s amazing for a place that was supposed to have some 200,000 in attendance over the course of three days how small that number really is. It also surprises me how many people remember me. In my mind, I don’t see myself as that memorable. (oh the irony of this blog’s existence) so when someone I haven’t seen in a while says “hello” I’m surprised, especially if it was an acquaintance from years ago.

These festivals are as much about community as anything. Going out as a town or a state really and doing the same thing. It’s one of those rituals. Go out for the weekend to listen to music and eat carnival style food and then get serious about remembering the troops and spending time with your family. So even if you were too cool for Riverfest (you probably weren’t, you just thought you were), I hope you had fun.

THE HORROR

THE HORROR!!!

Archives