Run With The Fishes

We spent the weekend in Oklahoma with my side of the family. My mom had all of her children and all of my step-dad’s children (6 in all) over for a Christmas get-together. When you add in aunts, uncles, spouses and almost all of her grandchildren, it makes for quite a houseful.

The highlight of the weekend was present time. Nathan was so happy with his present from my mom that he turned around and gave her a kiss right after opening it. For Nathan, that says a lot. He isn’t very free with his hugs and kisses, usually only giving them out when we are leaving and then only grudgingly.

More on Christmas later.

A rejected Christmas card. Everyone say AAHHHHH!

I know most of my posts have been about Allison, but that’s because she is crazy. It could also be due to the fact that she hasn’t learned to censor herself yet. Nathan and Zoey just don’t say as many off the wall things anymore.

Last night, my dad called and each of the kids had their turn talking to him on the phone. It was bedtime so conversations were shorter than normal. When it was Allison’s turn she quickly told him in a conspiratorial tone, “Grandpa, I have a secret for you and you can’t tell anybody.”

She then went on to tell him, “Dad caught a mouse in one of the bathrooms the other day. The mouse couldn’t live with us, so he took it outside and said, ‘Shoo, Shoo. Go to your own house.’* Now, that’s your secret Grandpa. Remember, you can’t tell anyone.”

I’m sure she picked it up from a television show or something. We don’t spend our time walking around telling secrets. The way she said it was great. It was something special for just the two of them.

*Since it is getting cold out, the field mice have started coming inside. Allison was really upset when she found that Greg took the mouse outside. She wanted to keep it as a pet. I had to convince her that the mouse had it’s own house to live in and a family that would miss it very much.

Allison woke up in the middle of the night, “Dad, Dad? I was dreaming. I had a dream. That’s using my imagination, Right?”

“It sure is.”

“Okay”, and back asleep in seconds.

I saw a couple of other people do this and thought it sounded like fun. As usually, I’m not going to tag anyone to do it. If you want to do it, be my guest. It would be pretty cool to see what Amy has in her slightly new* ipod though. I have lots of music for the kids and Greg thrown in with what I like on my computer. This should be interesting.

*I guess it doesn’t count as new if you got it several months ago.

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend your cool

Ahem – I don’t have to lie or try to pretend.

Opening Credits: Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall

A couple of weeks ago Best Week Ever did a montage about how this song seems to be flooding the airways when they want to show an empowered woman. It was very funny.

Waking Up: My Little Drum by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (A Charlie Brown Christmas)

Falling In Love: Race Car Ya-Yas by Cake

Since I have almost all of their songs, the odds of no Cake songs coming up were very small. Weird falling in love song though, maybe it stands for the craziness of it.

Fight Song: Must Get Out by Maroon 5

There is only one way this would be a fight song. If it were a feel good fight. “You’re the best ever”, “No, you are!”.

Breaking Up: Questions by Jack Johnson (Curious George Soundtrack)

Very mellow. There’s a reason the CD is titled Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies.

Making Up: Storm in a Teacup by Red Hot Chili Peppers (Stadium Arcadium, Jupiter disk)

I guess this could be used as a make-up song. It works if you are still slightly angry with the person you are making up with. I don’t think I’ve even heard it though. Ok, I’ve at least heard it once when we listened to all of the songs on the CD. Sounds so much like their old stuff though. We usually listen to the Mars disk. The kids favorites are Hump de Bump and Charlie

Life’s Ok: Night Before (Life Goes On) by Carrie Underwood

Ok, I did cheer for her to win since she’s a girl from Oklahoma, just like me. However, I have no idea how I have this music. I’m guessing I got it from someone at work who was trying to convince me that new country music really isn’t all that bad. This is a song I really haven’t ever heard before. I went ahead and listened to it. Pretty depressing. Maybe if this is the Life’s Ok music, it is supposed to make you realize how good your life really is, in comparison.

Driving: Oh Groundhog by Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell

Some more kiddo music. Since I really do listen to this while driving, it fits.

Flashbacks: So Far Away by Carole King

I love to sing along with old Carole King songs but only have a few of them in the playlist. I’m glad this one came up.

Happy Dance: Online by Gnarls Barkley

Some funky music. Not exactly Happy dance quality though.

Final Battle: A Change Would Do You Good by Sheryl Crow

I wonder who I would be battling with this song.

Death Scene: Greensleeves by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (Charlie Brown Christmas)

Nice choice playlist. Another one from my Christmas music. I shouldn’t be surprised since it is Christmas time. It’s a little strange since it pulled 2 from the same artist.

Final Credits: Don’t Take Your Guns to Town by Johnny Cash

None other than the Man in black to finish out the movie soundtrack of my life. Remember a few years ago when he started remaking fairly current popular songs? At first we were all, “What the heck? Is that really Johnny Cash singing those song?” . Then they started to grow on us.

A special shout out to my little sister. It seemed like one minute mom stubbed her toe, the next minute she went into labor and 10 minutes later you were born. I’m positive it didn’t really happen that way, but I was 11, I didn’t pay that close attention. When Stephen and I got to talk to mom on the phone I was mad because I really wanted another little brother. I’m glad I got a sister instead.

Happy 21st Birthday, Mish!

I’m pretty sure this picture was taken in January of 1988 or 1989. Look how beautiful my mom is. She was about 30 here. I know it doesn’t show her face, but it’s one of the few I have from when Mish was little. She looks like she is either 3 or 4 and I have another in the group of my brother holding a birthday pie. I’ll put that up on his birthday in January.

I realized that I have not done this for a couple of weeks. It’s time for another entry from Nathan’s journal. His teacher must have given them “red letter day” and “black letter day” as the phrases to use.

Once I had a red letter day that was turned into a black letter day. It seemed like a normal day. I was having toast for breakfast when my friend Dillion called me. He wanted to play video games at my house. Five minutes later we were getting mail when I got a letter that said I had won a bike! So I was so excited that I forgot the second letter. I ran to tell my parents. They asked if there was any other mail then I read the second letter. It said that the first letter was a mistake!

I like how he was very literal with the “letter” part of black and red letters. Sometimes my kids are just like Amelia Bedelia.

completely unedited

So, really I have been done reading this for a couple of months, but just hadn’t gotten around to writing up a review of it.

I have only read a couple of John Grisham’s other books. It was college and everyone else was doing it. I wanted to be one of the cool kids too. For the most part The Rainmaker is a pretty decent book. It’s not hard to read at all, not really life changing. Just a fluff book that was a good way to pass the time.

After we both read the book Greg and I watched the movie. As with most adapted movies, some parts were different, some the same. There were several parts that I thought were key to the book that didn’t make it into the movie. There were some things that made the movie more believable than the book. For instance: the book has everything fall perfectly into place for Rudy. The movie makes the courtroom battles not so easy-breezy for a lawyer trying his first ever case.

I know that this is supposed to be a review of the book and not the movie, but I’m going to talk about the movie a little bit more. For so many big named stars*, it was horrible. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if we hadn’t read the book first. We were both pretty surprised when we saw it was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. While we haven’t seen any of The Godfather movies yet (they are somewhere in the queue), surely they are better directed than this movie was.

* Sure Matt Damon wasn’t a superstar yet (this movie was released the same year as Good Will Hunting) but Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, John Voight, Virginia Madsen, Mickey Rourke, and Claire Danes were all really big names back in 1997.