Fall Premiere Season? ROCKS.

At 12:00 p.m.:

What the…?! Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries premiered last night?! Dude! At the risk of sounding geeky… okay, I’m PSYCHED.

At 1:15 p.m.:

OH. EM. GEE. Thank you, iTunes! Also, good LORD! That?! That was awesome.

Game on, indeed.

Am I Psyched? Chuck Yes!

I may or may not be super excited that a certain television show that I love oh-so-much will once more be on my TV this evening. Maybe. Not that the Olympics weren’t AWESOME and all (you know, from what I hear), but guys? GUYS?!

CHUCK! IS! BACK!

Yes! It is absolutely true. I mean, today is March 1, so, there you go. It IS March 1, right? RIGHT?!

Right.

I don’t want to come on too geeky, but… okay, I’m psyched!

Check it.

*happy dance*

Offensive Driving

So I totally had one of those crazy TV moments again yesterday. It was so silly, really. I mean, no one ASKED TGIM to jump behind my little Miata to pound his fist on the trunk and screech like– well, I’ll just say it– a freaking INSANE person about the lawn and how I was sort of maybe tearing up one teensy tiny SUPER little spot or some nonsense… but I suppose I should back up.

Heh. Back up. Heh heh. Hee.

Ahem.

See, we have this long, steep and windy, ridiculous driveway. So there you go. Oh, you need more? Well, only one car fits in the carport, so we have to park single file. SINGLE FILE. I know, in this day and age! So sometimes– at the buttcrack o’ dawn, mind you– I need to back one car down the driveway so TGIM can take the other car to work. Aaaaand now I’m thinking “Back it up like a dump truck, baby!”, thanks a lot, GLEE! Damn Quinn Fabray and her Power Motto!

But I digress.

So, I have to back a car down the driveway. It takes half a mo, and is thusly absolutely no big deal. Me backing the car down, that is. Except sometimes it is because I am BUSY. Doing morning stuff. But whatever, because I am an awesome driver. And it’s usually just my cute little Miata, which I am super stellar at driving, thanks to all the mad maneuvering skillz I learned during those four years of navigating the Capital Beltway. So, I’m an awesome driver, that’s all I’m saying. A little aggressive sometimes, sure, but that’s called offensive driving! No, that can’t be right. I’m not a defensive driver, so… whatever the opposite is, that’s what I am. Not that TGIM would ever admit it. Because he is a guy and I am not and only men can be awesome aggressive drivers because it’s a GUY thing and I am simply reckless, apparently. Which is a LIE.

Are we clear?

So whatever. I may have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to driving around TGIM. So, yesterday morning, when he had to leave and I was all, “I am BUSY! Doing morning stuff!” he went out, jumped in the Miata, and instead of backing all the way down the driveway, he backed just a short distance and a little off to the side, onto our grass. His big plan was to maneuver past the Miata in the Sequoia, then pull the Miata back into the carport for me.

Naturally, as I watched him doing this, I had guilt. Because maybe I wasn’t all that busy, okay? But I mentioned it was morning, right? Buttcrack o’ dawn, and whatnot? Don’t judge.

So I ran out to the still-running Miata, put ‘er in gear, let out the clutch, and… nothing. I mentioned the steep and windy ridiculousness of the driveway, didn’t I? So I wasn’t TOO worried that I seemed to be spinning my wheels but going no where. Which is redundant. I see that now. See, as I already mentioned, TGIM had parked half the car on the lawn, which happened to be covered with morning dew. But, as also previously mentioned, I am AWESOME. At the driving thing! And since my daddy taught me how to pull out of a dead stop on gravel hills in a manual transmission with minimal rollage, I was NOT going to let a small thing like wet grass under my rear wheel stop me from showing TGIM– who was watching from the other car– that I could DO THIS, thank you very much.

So, steep hill plus wet grass plus Cat with chip on shoulder apparently equals Bad. Because as I eased off the clutch– and nothing!– I may have instinctively gunned it a little, you know, to rip up the grass a bit and find some purchase underneath it. Which was a super good plan and was totally WORKING– vrOOOm… vrOOM!– until I heard yelling and felt someone pounding on the trunk of my car.

What the…?!

I ask you: What person, in his or her right mind, would run up behind ME, whilst I am totally busy rocking the clutch and showing the neighborhood how to get ‘er done?! VROOOM!

Well, TGIM will. Yup.

I stopped the car, pulled the emergency brake, opened my door to see what the HELL was going on, and THAT is when I totally had one of those TV moments. (Hoo boy! I bet you thought I’d never get here, eh? Is anyone still reading? Hello?) There stood TGIM, arms spread wide in an Oh-No-You-DI’NT gesture, looking alternately from me to his suit, which was plastered in wet grass, sod, a little mud, and other lawn bits. It was classic slapstick comedy– you know, something you see on TV or in a movie and laugh at but think could never ACTUALLY happen– but with very real, and no doubt costly, dry-cleaning repercussions.

I was horrified! So, naturally I started to giggle.

Then, “What are you DOING?!” TGIM asked. Not nicely either, which RUDE.

“What are YOU doing?!” was my obvious reply.

“You were tearing up the LAWN!”

I was all, “Um, yeah, but what were you thinking?! I’m driving here! I totally HAD this! You don’t just run up behind someone’s car while they are DRIVING and pound on the trunk! Because of a tiny strip of grass! GRASS! That’s craziness! You’re crazy!”

“But… you were tearing up the LAWN!” At my blank look, he added, “Why didn’t you just let the car roll a foot or two so the back wheel would be back on the pavement?”

I glanced back at our steep and windy ridiculous driveway, then back at TGIM. “Oh,” I replied. “That could work.”

And it did.

As we walked toward the house, me to finish getting ready and TGIM to change and rinse the lawn from his face, I had a sudden thought. “Hey… Maybe those crazy TV show moments really ARE set in reality.”

We were both laughing as we walked into the house.

I Just Know Things. In My Mind.

Favorite new television show quote:

“I just know things. In my mind.”
Kat Stratford

Stated quite seriously in response to Cameron, drunk on a teen cliche– in other words, because he was too stupid to know the watermelon was spiked– after he asks an intoxicated Kat how she KNOWS her sister probably wishes she were making out with him RIGHT NOW.

First of all, spiked watermelon?! Who DOES that?! Tampering with the melon and whatnot?! I am so out of the loop.

And B, shut it! My kiddos MAKE me watch “10 Things I Hate About You”! Based on the movie of the same name! Which I may or may not have loved way back when! Because of Julia Stiles and her pouty expressions and slouchy overalls! And Heath Ledger and his singing in the bleachers! And their cuteness! And Larry Miller! Because he’s funny! Whatever! It’s a FAMILY thing! I watch the show with the FAMILY!

Also, the actress’s delivery was HI-larious. And Gregory Peck’s grandson, who plays the Heath Ledger role, looks and sounds eerily like his grandaddy, who’s old-timey babe-a-licious!

Wait. That probably isn’t the cool thing to say anymore. Freak! I am so out of the loop.

Literally Speaking

You know that curse? That one the mother often calls down upon her recalcitrant daughter? You know, the one that goes, “Someday you will have a child just like you and then you will be SO SORRY, so help you God!”? You know? That one?

First of all, RUDE. I was a joy as a child. My teachers all said so. I’ll bet. I’m pretty sure. Probably. I mean, I was friendly, yo? With all the conversation-making and storytelling? And super helpful, too, especially when we had substitutes. They didn’t even need their lesson plans with me around, I tell you what. I mean, I was more than happy to point out all the class rules and procedures and not a bit shy to correct any divergance from The Way Things Should Be. I was just THAT helpful. The subs all thought so. I’ll bet. Probably.

Second of all, I momentarily forgot what I was talking about.

So… the curse. Right. Rewind to Sunday night when my kiddos insisted I watch (i.e., forced me to sit through) some random show about these real-life kid ghost hunters– whose legitimacy I totally call into question, by the way. I mean, what parent is all, “Sure, honey! You can stay out ALL NIGHT at that reportedly haunted hotel with a few of your friends and some super expensive night vision equipment, web cams, EMF devices, flux capacitors… Go on! Scoot!” Hey, I’m just saying the premise is flawed, is all.

Anyway, toward the end of the show, the token scaredy-cat girl was all, “Oh my gosh! I was literally scared to death!” and I grinned to myself because I AM just that much of an English geek.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one enjoying a bit of a laugh at the expense of the silly, scaredy-cat girl, who, quite frankly, should rethink her career choice because ghosts and haunted places? They’re SCARY, okay? That’s kind of the point. THINK about it. I’m only saying.

But I digress.

Before I could use this moment as a Teaching Opportunity (I think we’ve established my inherent geekiness, so shut it), I heard giggles. A smothered chuckle. Then, “Well, not literally,” my 13-year-old son drawled.

“I know, right?!” agreed my 11-year-old daughter in her I Scoff At Your Supreme Ignorance voice.

My 10-year-old daughter, perhaps for my benefit, added scornfully, “Because she’s still ALIVE?!” She turned toward me. “Right, Momma?”

Struck as I was by the astonishing degree to which my English Geekiness has rubbed off on my kiddos, I could only nod. She, apparently assured by my arrested expression that she had indeed got the joke, turned back toward the TV.

I couldn’t contain a small snort of laughter and a rueful shake of the head as it struck me that, by golly, my mother’s curse? Totally upon me. And you know what?

I’m not even a little sorry.

Next Page »