kdiddy.org

So, Scarface last night was a lot of fun. The sound quality was pretty poor, though. I think I'm going to investigate to see if Giorgio Moroder is working the sound department at the Oaks. Speaking of which, Pittsburgh people, lend me your ears once again. The Oaks Theater in Oakmont is definitely a treat.
Go to their webpage to check out their schedule and whatnot:
http://www.theoakstheater.com/
I must also endorse their concession stand. Their popcorn is superb and they have the best candy selection that I've ever seen…which leads me to a funny anecdote. Since I'm knee-deep in this pre-hibernation, pre-Halloween candy binge, I couldn't resist the huge bars of Cadbury Royal Dark Chocolate that they had at the counter. So, so good. I was happily munching and sucking along throughout the movie and when it was over I got all of my stuff together. I went to get my wallet from my lap and stuck my finger in something warm and gooey. When I finally got out into the light, I realized, to my complete and utter embarrassment, that a square of chocolate had fallen into my lap somewhere around the Freedomtown riots, and had melted into a nice brown puddle on my pants. Not only that, many small crumbs of chocolate had taken residence on my sweater. I was covered in chocolate. was right; can't take me anywhere.
My mom was so thrilled with the jack o'lantern that I made yesterday that she went out and bought three more for me to carve. So the baby and I are going to be pretty busy today. I've also dug out some cookbooks to look for soup recipes. The baby WILL NOT eat vegetables…unless they're in soup form. He'll literally eat anything as long as it's in a bowl of soup. I don't know why and I don't care. All I know is that I've finally found a way to get him to eat healthier. Right now, we're using canned soup but I want to get him off of that. Progresso has over 2,000 milligrams of sodium in a can, and that's just not good for him. I'm also going to poke around for juice and smoothie recipes, since I figure I can put the smoothie maker to good use by making him veggie and fruit drinks. He'll drink anything out of a sippy cup.
Also on the agenda: laundry…again. *kills self*
So, that there's my day, folks. Don't be too envious…especially since right now I'm off to change a poopy diaper! Yippee!

stolen from

Go to google.com, click on images, search for your LJ username, then post the results. Here's mine. It's not what I was expecting.

I've thought about it, and I've decided that I can't deal with the whole getting-dark-at-4:30-in-the-afternoon thing. It's not so much the cold and the snow but the darkness that kills me.
That might also lend some sort of explanation to my eating habits of late. I wish that you guys could see me right now. I'm kind of slouched on my bed and am surrounded by SweetTarts wrappers and pretzels. The preliminary Halloween candy has no defenses against me. Last night I went berzerk on a bunch of fun-size Butterfingers. And there are many more days of this candy/cake nonsense. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Thanks for everyone's participation in my poll. I'll post more about the origins of all of that mess when I get a chance.
The baby and I carved a jack o'lantern today using one of those kits that you can buy at the store. If I do say so myself, it looks hot.
Blargh, what else? The boyfriend and I are going out to the Oaks Theater tonight to see the 20th Anniversary edition of Scarface. Yippee.

I'd like your opinion regarding a discussion that I am having with some cohorts.

I'm trying out the new post-by-email feature.
The theme for today is “Smashing Small Fingers.” So far today, the baby has
smashed his fingers in one of the kitchen drawers, one of my dresser
drawers, the back door, the door to one of the kitchen cabinets, and, as an
added bonus, snapped his fingers with a gum band. Luckily, no serious
injuries have been sustained. Everything up to this point has been fixed
with a kiss and a hug.
This article was in the PG today:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03300/234264.stm
Basically, it's about people living at home longer, in part due to the slow
economy and whatnot. But apparently I fall into a demographic known as
“emerging adulthood.” I'm not a “real” adult yet. That eases my mind a
little bit.
I have bad breath. I'm going to go remedy that.

In this week's Pulp, I just have a tiny Live This Week:
http://www.pittsburghpulp.com/content/2003/10_23/arts_live.shtml
(scroll down to HutchSimon Project CD Release)
The boyfriend and I went to the show, since I was complaining that I never get to go to the things that I write about. It was very nice. Hutch has an amazing voice, and nothing beats the Shadow Lounge for a chill evening out. There were only a few hipsters in attendance, and white trash was minimal. One girl wore her Pabst Blue Ribbon sweatshirt (barf).

My, it's been a few days, hasn't it? It's not that I don't care, and it's not that I haven't had plenty to write about, I just haven't felt like dragging out the keyboard when I've had a moment or two to sit down. Let me brief you on a few things. Highlights of the past four days include:
-Swan Lake on Thursday with my mom. The performance was really quite special. People living in the Pittsburgh area, listen up: if you haven't seen Ying Li dance yet, get thee to the Benedum Center. She's truly a treasure and we're very lucky to have her.

-Lunch at Zenith Tea Room with Shanley. Thanks to Port Authority Transit, what should have been a leisurely two-hour lunch ended up being a five-hour trek through Pittsburgh. Prince Andrew's motorcade couldn't have helped. Stinkin' royals. Anyway, lunch was yummy. Pittsburgh people, lend me your ears one more time: Zenith is an antique store/vegetarian restaurant at the corner of 26th and Sarah Street on the South Side. It's very cool and the food is yummy. Bonus: while we were there they were playing the Eraserhead soundtrack.

-I FINALLY received my paycheck from the PG. They gave me slightly more than they told me they were going to, which was very cool. They also sent me a copy of the article, which was funny since there's a stack of PGs from September 18th in my dining room. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything fun with it. Credit card bills beckon. Fuckers. However, my birthday is coming up on Friday (ahem, see amazon.com wish list. thanks.) so hopefully that will provide me with a little spending cash.

-The boyfriend and I went to see Mystic River yesterday. Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I definitely don't hate it, but I wasn't dong backflips at the theatre. However, the NY Times was pretty justified in their ravings over Sean Penn. Acting is too small a word for what he does in that film. I also really, really like Marcia Gay Hearden. I think she's gorgeous. But if you like character-driven movies, go see it. Although, I still don't think anything will top Lost in Translation this year. I'm looking forward to 21 grams. More Sean Penn.

-The baby has taken up singing recently. Over the past couple of months, I've been singing “Nature Boy” to him at bedtime. He loves that song, and now seems to have memorized most of it. Of course, he's mostly just imitating the sounds, and only understands a few words of it, but it's too cute to hear him say, “We spoke of many things, fools and kings…”

-I got the newish bed from my grandparents. The headboard is nice and not too imposing, but the mattress isn't quite firm enough for my taste. I might put my old mattress back on it.

So, the not-so-cool stuff from my weekend mainly involves an argument that I had with my mother yesterday. I know what you're thinking. “No! Kelly have an argument with her mother? Impossible!” But it's true. This one revolved around some tentative plans that I had made with to go to a Halloween party for some company that she knows. Part of the reason that I was going to go was to meet the owner, since there's a possibility I could swing a copywriting job with them. I mentioned this and started arranging babysitting with the boyfriend. My mom became extremely disgusted and said, “I don't want to be here for this.” I was baffled. An immature spat followed, which culminated in my mother shouting at me, “YOUR PLACE IS AT HOME WITH YOUR SON!” Silence. I had never had anyone tell me what my place was, and I never expected my mom to say something so disgustingly old-fashioned. She seems to think that my desire to work outside of the home is some kind of attack on the baby, as though I don't love him enough to stay home with him. I don't know. It opened up this huge can of worms involving issues of feminism, money, boundaries, motherhood…just about anything that I don't have the energy to think about right now. My mother is certainly entitled to her opinions, but I think that, considering how old I am, she expects too much “obedience” from me. Another problem is that she gets it. My mom didn't want me to go out last night, and in the end I didn't. My mom doesn't want me to get a job, so does that mean that I just won't get one? Sigh. Too much to think about for a rainy Sunday.
I will give you a bit of advice, though. Extra's new flavor of gum, Wildberry Frost, is awful. It tastes like cough drops. I stupidly bought a Plen-T-Pak of it, so now I'm stuck with it. Curses.
I think I need a nap.

Last night, the boyfriend, the baby, and I went to his mom's house for dinner. We do this usually around once a week, but the difference this time was that his dad was in town for a visit. The boyfriend's parents had a not-so-nice divorce, but are friends now. Despite this, I was nervous. When I first met the boyfriend's dad, I was about 3 or 4 months pregnant. He was very cold to me at that first meeting and I later found out that it was because he thought that I was ruining the boyfriend's life. I was very civil to him that first time, but he stared me down and barely said a word to me. You know me, Vagina Dentata. My only goal is to destroy innocent men with my disarmingly cute offspring. I am She-Wolf. I will break your male spirit, devour it. I will wear your testicles around my neck on a chain that I will make you buy for me. I will steal all of your money, because it is known that women control 90% of the wealth in America*. But I digress. This was the second or third time that I've seen the boyfriend's dad since then, and I was relieved that he seems to not hate me anymore. Not that it matters if he does or not, but it definitely made for an uncomfortable vibe during that first meeting. I'm not trying to argue over the inequalities between men and women when I'm just trying to eat some stew. We actually had civil conversation and even joked around a little bit. Nice.
Anyway, onto other, happier things. The boyfriend and I talked briefly today about a Quaker marriage ceremony. If you didn't know, Pennsylvania is a Quaker state, so any resident of PA can legally be married in a Quaker ceremony. The reason that we're looking into this option is because neither the boyfriend nor I associate with any organized religion. We were both raised Catholic, but we wouldn't feel comfortable fudging our way through the marriage classes and the ceremony just to adhere to the traditions of our families. It just wouldn't be right or honest, and really, if you marry under those sorts of circumstances what hope do you have? The thing that we like most about the Quaker ceremony is that no one officiates. The couple marries each other. You can read more about it here if you're interested: http://www.danddhitchin.u-net.com/Quakers/Qmar.htm
I don't know if that's what we'll definitely do. Not surprisingly, I have visions of a traditional ceremony stuck in my head and I can just hear the crap that my mother, grandmother, etc. are going to give me about this. “A QUAKER ceremony? That's ridiculous. Peckpeckpeckpeckpeck…” *shudder*
Oh, and, you didn't miss anything. We're not officially engaged. We were just throwing around ideas.
So…yeah, the weather's pretty crappy today, but the we took a walk anyway. One good thing about this cold snap is that it seems to have killed off any remaining yellow jackets. Fuckers. We stopped into Starbucks because one of the girls who works there is pregnant and my baby always flirts with her. We chatted for a little bit. She's due on Thanksgiving, which is right around the time that I was due. But, I told her, I went two weeks over just for fun. I think I unintentionally freaked her out a bit. Sorry Starbucks Mom.
Duuuhhh, I don't know what else. Oh, Gerber graduates Fruit Juice Snacks should be renamed as Toddler Crack.

*That last gem is compliments of my dear old dad, who was in the midst of a misogynist rant inspired by his divorce settlement with my mother. For the record, I looked at my bank statement today and it said $27.96. Yeah, I'm the fucking Sultan of Brunei.

…or whatever it is that Pooh says.
Since the boyfriend only had school today, we took a special trip down to Arsenal Park. Well, I make it sound simpler than it really was. The baby and our did our usual morning routine, the only deviation being his sudden interest in this dinky little tricycle that's been sitting down in the basement for a year. We rode around on that outside for awhile, until he fell over and hit the back of his head on the brick walkway. Ow. By that time, the boyfriend was home from school and I had excitedly suggested the park trip. The boyfriend, predictably said, “Cool, but let me go check my email first.” An hour later, the baby and I were sitting in the kitchen, he in his stroller, both whining, “Come OOONNNNN! Let's GOOOOOOO!” There was a very practical reason for me wanting to get going. A lot of times, if the baby doesn't go down for a nap by a certain point in the afternoon, all hope of a nap is lost for the day. That can really suck. I wanted to go and get back so that he wouldn't miss naptime. Whatever. Boyfriend got all pissy at me for dragging him away from his very important email and then snapped at me again when I asked him what time we were going over to his mother's house. the fuck?
Anyway, we walked over to the park but the baby was being weird. He didn't really want to go down the slide or anything, and was crying pretty hard for no apparent reason. This, of course, was all my fault. At least, that was the boyfriend's theory. My mere presence turns any situation into a No-Fun Zone as I suck all of the enjoyment out of life…or something. I think that it had something to do with the ladybug infestation. I personally removed about a dozen ladybugs from the slide. Anyway, I was banished over to the other side of the park and I really didn't mind all that much. Dad and son got some quality time in, which is something that they've been lacking. I played hopscotch and talked with some kids who were on recess from the adjoining K-8 school. A couple of moms and their little ones filtered in while they waited for their older kids to be dismissed from school. My neighborhood, while it is certainly in the process of being gentrified by yuppies, still has some rather sad characters drifting about. Case in point, the mother who came with her two kids and was missing nearly all of her teeth. The teeth that she did have were rotting to the point where I could practically see through them. It was disturbing. She couldn't have been much older than me. Her kids were fairly well-behaved, although her older son, who was about 6, was none too pleased with my son's habit of following him around just to see what he was doing. At one point he told me, “Tell your son to quit chasing me.” I gave him a dirty look but said, “He's not chasing you, he's just impressed since you're so big and can do so many cool things.” Little shit. Later on, the older kid and his friend bumped into the baby, pointed at him, yelled “Ew!” and then ran away. I couldn't help but laugh. I told my kid, “You'd better just get used to that, buddy. Both your dad and I got a lot of that when we were little. I don't think there's much hope for you not being weird. Besides, they're lemmings.” Hell, we still get the adult version of that now. No matter. We rule. Even if the boyfriend's a total punk to me sometimes.
:-p
I poked around the playground a little bit more and found some interesting things. A Donald Duck charm, a spike from some piece of punk paraphernalia, some broken glass, and this gem of graffiti “Truth or Dare: Guys cum daily (truth) Let him cum in your mouth (dare).” That's nice. Hey, at least it was spelled correctly. Maybe the public school system isn't as bad as it seems.
Then I watched the kids from the school go back inside once their gym class was over. They have to get patted down and have their backpacks searched by security guards before reentering leaving the field. Weird.
When I returned to the boyfriend and the baby, I noticed that the boyfriend, especially when he gets into a parent-concentrated area, turns into one of Them. Those weird parents. It's not real bad, but he looks at the other kids that are slightly older than our baby and worries that ours is somehow lagging behind. Today he was worried because this 2 and 1/2 year old little boy could speak in complete sentences. I told him to quit being silly. Our kid kinda says sentences and besides, by the time he's 2 and 1/2 I don't even want to think about all of the things that he'll be able to say. The only area where our kid is behind is weight. Other than that he's right on time. And anyway, who cares? I don't know.

At some point today I let a humongous horsefly in here. Ass.
I'm hungry.

My next door neighbor just called and asked me, “What's up with your mom?”
What a fucking loaded question.

In all seriousness, my mom drives her to Weight Watchers and she's running a little late tonight. But still, that was a funny way to put it.