August 24th!!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!

That's the date the third Hunger Games book comes out.

Did I already say, AAAAHHHHHHH? I can't wait that long! I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't!

Especially after spending the last two days reading furiously through the first two books.

I'm hooked, lined and sinkered, peeps. OMGOSH! Sooooo hooked, lined and sinkered. I even faked sick on the let's-drive-through-Yellowstone day, and then flat out defied my hub's orders to TURN OFF THE LIGHTS AND GET TO SLEEP! Two nights in a row!

High Five to Suzanne Collins for hooking, lining and sinkering me. Me, who can't even get hooked on phonics.

Word: If you haven't read The Hunger Games yet, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT STARTING IT. Until August 22nd. Then read Catching Fire on August 23rd. Then get in line at Borders at midnight to buy Mockingjay on August 24th.

I'll save you a place, k.

Nother word: Plan on faking sick. Or running off into the woods for a week, with your hub's famdamily. That's what I did. In fact I'm in Ideeho, right now. Island Park, Ideeho.

Bills Island, to be exact.

Hodge Lodge on Bills Island to be really exact.

(Was that TMI?)

You can google map it if you want to know my exact coordinates. (Unless you're a serial killer or a CTD stalker. Don't google map it if you fit either of these profiles.)

On second thought, go ahead. I'm not there anymore anyway. I wrote this post days ago, but the Wifi at the Hodge Lodge was so spotty I never got it published. Now the whole post is so yesterday so I need to rewrite it, which is probably a good thing because, as they say in Ideeho, what happens at the Hodge Lodge stays at the Hodge Lodge.

PSYCH!

Do you really think I could spend a week with my cutie patootie MIL and not tell you everything?

Not with that face I couldn't. And yes, that really is a flamingo on her mumu.

Tune in tomorrow for highlights. You won't want to miss the photographic evidence of her startling realization that 78 year olds can no longer hop on one foot. (But they sure can toot while trying.) (Told ya she was a cutie patootie. hee hee Get it? PaTOOTie? )

Okay, stop twisting my arm, I'll show you the photographic evidence now:

Do you think this is what Jordan Sparks meant when she said, no air?

My MIL may not be able to get air, but she sure can play a mean game of pool.

Check. her. out. Not only does she play mean, she wins mean.

I'm telling you, the Chica's got the Midas touch. She wins every freakin' game she plays. Especially when she plays double solitaire. Against me.

Which reminds me of the great idea I got for a new reality TV show. It will be kinda like The Big Brother House meets Survivor meets The Brady Bunch meets Lord of the Flies meets The Plan of Salvation. I'll call it Famdamilies are Forever (thanks to duct tape). Here's the premise: A whole entire family will be stuck together in a Lodge on an Island for time and all eternity. There will be challenges and obstacles and confrontations. And there will be weapons. And then once a week there will be a tribal counsel and someone will get voted out of the family. 

(Is anyone else seeing dollar signs?)

As Gad as my witness, my MIL will be the last dummy standing.

Bless her heart.

She could outlast the energizer bunny, that one. But I lub her guts for it because she makes me LOL. Especially at 3 a.m. when we're debating controversial issues and she's not completely lucid but she refuses to go to bed until everyone else has gone to bed. 

It's a good thing she doesn't drink. 

More tomorrow . . .

Jack Johnson Give-oh-give-away

Jack Johnson fans, listen up. I'm giving away two free tickets to his upcoming concert at USANA Ampitheater in Salt Lake City on August 13th.

Alls you have to do to enter is go to The Magic Quilt blogspot and support my project to heal the world one quilt at a time.

Look to it.

I'll wait.

Actually, I'll be back later gator because I'm famdamily reunioning at Island Park at the moment.

LY!!

Pat, Victoria and LaFonda

Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!

I (accidentally) found something Lulu will eat. Besides socks. Something edible.

Cat food.

She'll eat cat food. Not only will she eat it, she'll snarf it down like nobody's bizness.

Do you think Lulu is a cat stuck in a dog's body?

(Not that I care, I'm totally tolerant when it comes to animal orientation.)

Guess what else! Guess what else! Guess what else!

Pat, the Nutty Hamster Chick, picked me up from Big-O Tires yesterday and took me to the Olive Garden while I waited for my brakes to get checked. It was the one year anniversary of the Crash Test Dummy Olive Garden blogger lunch, and I had not one, not two, but three servings of Zuppa Toscana soup.

Can I just publicly declare that I never want to see another bowl of Zuppa Toscana again. In fact, this is the last time you'll ever hear me utter the words Zuppa Toscana.

Shudder!

Anyways, eating Zuppa Toscana with Pat is like eating Zuppa Toscana with a very old, dear friend.

Did that come out wrong?

Not an old, dear friend per say, more a we go way back, dear friend. It was like, "So Pat, how's your mom? Is she still in remission? And how's Jared's hip? And what about Trent? Did you cry at the MTC? And how's that little cutie patootie Diana? And what's your hub's name again?"

That's what blogging does. It helps you see that blogging friends are people too. Just like me and you.

See what I mean?

(BTW, get a load of Pat, she's wearing her seat belt. What a silly goose. I guess she takes the Crash Test Dummy experience very seriously.)

(Get it? Crash test dummy?)

(Sometimes I crack myself up.)

(Literally!)

(Does it not look like we printed this photo on a piece of paper towel, or what?)

I have to tell you that Pat's voice is like butter. It's so sooooothing, you just want to grab a piece of toast and jar of raspberry jalapeno jelly and smear it all over her face.

Unlike Nevada and I, we didn't talk about neuroses. We talked about secrets.

Not our secrets, other people's secrets.

Not other blog people's secrets, other real people's secrets.

(It's nobody you know, so stop your speculating.)

I personally feel that secrets are bad. Bad, bad, bad. Except my secrets. My secrets are necessary.

The only person who shouldn't tell her secrets is Victoria. Victoria's Secret is . . . kinda naughty. I know this because after the Zuppa Toscana I actually stopped by Victoria's Secret to pick up a gift for my niece's wedding shower.

My, oh my! Oh my! Did I already say that Victoria's Secret is kinda naughty? I would go so far as to say it's kinda naughty Marrietta.

I'm out of the naughty Marrietta loop, peeps. I honestly couldn't decide between the teensy tiny French maid uniform for $58.99 or the itsy bitsy sparkly pink baby doll for $48.99.

(And that Love ROCKS body lotion? It costs $20.99!! HELLO! Love don't ROCK that hard! Especially when it's misspelled.)

I decided on the baby doll but HOLY CATWOMAN, Batman! Gimme some lace and glitter and I coulda/woulda/shoulda made a sparkly pink baby doll for only $5.99.

Actually, I just bought a real pink baby doll at Walmart for $5.99.

Meet LaFonda. She's my trek baby so I can't take responsibility for her name.

Here's a true story about LaFonda: My twins found the Victoria's Secret receipt on the kitchen table this morning.

They freaked out.

"You paid $48 for LaFonda?"

How do you explain to your 11-year-olds that no, you didn't buy a baby doll for $48 from Walmart, you actually bought a piece of sparkly pink lace for $48 from a naughty lady named Victoria?

Hee hee hee Look what Lulu just did to the receipt:

Not only is my dog globally responsible, she's also morally sound.

P.S. Garden of Egan, are you exhausted again?


P.S.S. You have to read back a few posts to get all the allusions in this post. Look to it, peeps.


P.S.S.S Raise your hand if you want to go to the Jack Johnson concert with me, my hub and my daughter on August 13th. I've got two extra tickets. Come back tomorrow to find out how you can win them.

Flour Girls, Dough Boys, and Globally Conscious Dogs

Remember yesterday when Lulu performed three adverbs and two verbs on my rock star brother's noun?


Well today she performed one verb on THREE nouns.


That's right, she upchucked not one, not two, but THREE socks.



Only one of them belonged to my rock star brother, the other two belonged to my daughter.



As if that isn't bad enough I had to back Lulu away from the scene with a tennis racket to keep her from eating them all over again.



Who binges and purges three socks a day? And then begins binging again?



Self-sustaining, self-reliant dogs, who are globally concious and environmentally aware, that's who.



At least she recycles, that's alls I'm sayin'.



Guess what she did immediately after she upchucked?



She went to her food dish and ate all of her dry dog food. AND her wet dog food too.



Told ya she was puuuurfect.



So here's the million dollar question: do you wash and return regurgitated socks or do you replace them?



In other words, how much do I care about recycling?



Inquiring minds want to know. (Inquiring minds on a budget.)



Please advise.




I'll wait.








While I'm waiting, guess who called me to do lunch yesterday?

Nevadanista.

(Do I have the Donny and Marie smile down, or what?)

I am the first blogger Nevada has ever done lunch with. Woohooo! (And believe you me, she was edgy about the whole blind-blog date thing. She even sent me a text before hand to clarify that I wasn't a serial killer. And an email afterwards to thank me for not being a serial killer.)

Such a silly goose.

We went to an eclectic little sandwich shop in American Fork called Flour Girls and Dough Boys where we drank Italian creme sodas. YUM-O!

What a cutie patootie.

We had the best time ever eating paninis and diagnosing each others neurosis. If we hadn't been sitting by the bathrooms it would have been the coolest place on earth to confront our issues!






See what I mean?

For those of you who don't know, Nevada is an incredible photographer, so she agreed to teach me a few tricks.

Like this:

And this:

How cool am I?

Soooooooooo, what do you think about the socks? Reduce, reuse, recycle or replace?