Have you seen the movie “Cloverfield” yet? Well, let me warn you, if you haven’t been warned already: If you have ever been affected by even the slightest bit of motion sickness in your life, I would HIGHLY recommend that you DO NOT go and see this movie.

Cloverfield starts off with a guy and a girl and a hand held video camera. (No. It’s not a porn flick, Mr. Dyckerson.) We see everything from the perspective of this video camera as it records the lives of five New Yorkers; starting with a going away party for one of their friends. During the party there is a huge ‘seismic’ disturbance that temporary blacks out the city. When the lights come back on, there is a huge explosion as first one building and then another is destroyed by something of unknown origin. And as most movies of this genre go, all of the characters have a complete moment of stupidity as they go out into the streets to investigate. There is a whoosh of rubble dust as parts of buildings and the head of the Statue of Liberty comes crashing down, nearly caping the camera holder. (Oh, if only we could be that lucky.)

At this point in the movie, I was seriously fighting the urge to vomit all over the theatre floor. I just couldn’t handle all that jerky camera movement… bah! I took a few deep breaths, but it didn’t seem to help. So I closed my eyes and just listened to all the screams of “Oh my God!” and “Did you see that?” But when one of the characters mumbled something to the effect of “It’s eating people”, I decided to brave a peek. A very brief peek.

Ugh. Not such a good idea. I was seriously considering emptying my son’s bucket of popcorn on the floor, so that I could use the bucket. You know what I’m saying? I closed my eyes again and leaned over to tell my son, “I’m sorry, but I can’t watch this movie. I don’t think I’m going to make it through to the end.”

I think I should state right here and now that I have never suffered from motion sickness in my life. I traveled a lot as a kid. I used to read while riding in the car. I loved playing on merry-go-rounds for gosh sakes! But this movie… Oh. My. Gosh. I haven’t felt this sick to my stomach since my last pregnancy… fourteen years ago!

Anyhow, the movie continued on despite my discomfort. Every so often I snuck a quick peek, long enough to see the monster attack one of the main characters (sorry, hope that’s not too much of a spoiler). And then I peeked again, just in time to get a view of a portion of the monster, and then once again to see a bunch of military folks get eaten. I really couldn’t tell you what happens after that because my son suddenly leaned over and said…

“Mom. I don’t feel so good. Can we leave?”

Thank God!

“Are you sure?” I asked. After all, he had paid for the movie tickets.

“Yeah. Please. I just wanna leave. Now.”

That was good enough for me. I grabbed my coat and purse and made for the door. Once we made it out into the hall, my son leaned against the wall for support while I nearly lost the meager contents of my breakfast. When we made it outside to the car, my son asked if we could just sit there (unmoving) for a few moments. At this point, my head was resting on the steering wheel and I was groaning for mercy, so I had no problems with that request.

We both went straight to our beds when we got home. It was that bad. I don’t know how I managed to drive the 10 miles home without barfing. Wow. What a horrible experience.

If any of you have seen the movie, and actually made it all the way through without barfing your guts out, feel free to let me know how it ended. Because honestly, if it wasn’t for the motion sickness, I think this might have been an entertaining movie.

In conclusion: If you are going to see “Cloverfield”, forget the popcorn and take plenty of Dramamine.

P.S. The theatre was kind enough to refund our tickets.

Technorati Tags: movie, Cloverfield, motion sickness, video camera

Here I thought that I seriously sucked at multi-tasking, but this morning I discovered just how wrong I was. I’m actually rather good at it.

I power walked on my glider,
…while talking on the phone,
…AND listened to The Today Show tell me what *not* to buy at the Dollar store—all without gasping for breath.

I removed a virus from my son’s computer,
…while petting the dog,
…AND prepared a Half.com package for shipping.

I placed a piece of wheat bread in the toaster,
…while returning a call to my mother,
…while waiting for her to answer, I noticed flames shooting out of my toaster oven,
…and turned to grab the baking soda to put out the fire,
…and quickly processed the disturbing fact that there wasn’t any baking soda on the counter (where it belonged… just in case of a kitchen fire.),
…so I climbed a step stool to look in the cabinet for an unopened box of baking soda—(in the cabinet directly above the high reaching flames)—while keeping the phone to my ear, all the while praying that my mother wouldn’t answer while I was uttering a certain four-letter word,
…I held the phone to my shoulder with my head, while I shoved things here and there in the cabinet (successfully avoiding being singed), because someone had moved the unopened baking soda as well,
…I grabbed the box of baking soda (FINALLY), while simultaneously turning the dial on the stove hood fan, climbed down from the stool, hung up on my mother’s answering service, placed the phone on the counter, unplugged the toaster oven, and tried to open the damn box because the ‘Easy Open Top’ tab was seriously resisting my efforts,
…I looked to make sure that my cabinets were not on fire… yet,
…then I uttered a couple more four-letter words while I, not so delicately, ripped off the entire top of the box, grabbed a wooden spoon to open the toaster oven door, and then shook a couple doses of baking soda over the flames, thusly dousing them,
…then I opened a window to help clear out the smoke,
…got another piece of wheat bread out of the freezer, put it in the microwave on ‘Top Brown’… it didn’t,
…AND then I slapped a teaspoon of peanut butter on my un-browned, un-toasted, piece of bread, leaned back against the counter, sighed, and scarfed down my breakfast.

What a terrific morning! I mean, seriously. If someone had cleaned their mess of melted garlic toast butter out of the bottom of my toaster over… I never would have realized my mad multi-tasking skilz.

And now I can go about the rest of my day with a sense of pride and satisfaction.

I am woman. I CAN multi-task with the best of ‘em!

Ha!

Technorati Tags: multi-tasking

The past few weeks have been horribly trying… this weekend excessively stressful; and because of that, I decided to do absolutely nothing of consequence. …other than the dishes. There’s always those blasted dirty dishes.

Anyway, I turned to artistic pursuits in order to find a modicum of peace and tranquility—my ‘happy place‘, if you will.

On Saturday, I colored posters with my daughter. We each have one of those black felt, rolled posters with a mandala type of design on them. ‘Cept, they don’t make them with the felt anymore. It’s just black ink. Anyhoo, that was a fun little bonding experience. Didn’t quite finish the poster, of course. But I will someday. I’ll never grow tired of coloring.

Today, my modem kept going all sorts of wonky, so I could not pursue any online activities. So (after successfully resisting the urge to guzzle the entire bottle of vodka in my freezer) I played around with Paint Shop for a bit. More coloring. Whoopie! I created a character from one of my role-playing games at RPoL.net. Her name is Mitzi, and she is a mix of pixie, gargoyle, and leopard. Yes, I know. I have quite the imagination. It’s what keeps me sane.

Wanna see my mad Paint Shop skilz?

*heh*

I took this picture here…

…And turned it into this picture here:
(It looks better when you click on it to enlarge.)

So, what did you do with your weekend?

Technorati Tags: artistic pursuits, happy place, colored, Paint Shop

[poll=2]

Click here to play Stacy’s Trivia Challenge!

(Good Golly! Is Carrot Top on steroids?)

As a kid, I suffered the nickname of ‘Carrot Top‘ from friends and strangers alike. If it wasn’t Carrot Top, then it was ‘Red‘.

Gee. How utterly unimaginitive. I mean, really. How much thought went into that? Did they strain their brain with that one? I don’t hear people with black hair receiving the nickname of ‘Coal Top’ or brown-haired folks being called ‘Potato Head’. I think the closest match would be the nickname of ‘Blondie‘ for a blonde.

Ho-freakin-hum.

C’mon, people! You can be more creative than that!

By the time I reached high school, I had decided that I’d had enough. I wasn’t a vegetable, dagnabit! So I began to challenge every single mindless bore that addressed me as ‘Carrot Top’. …And there were oh, so many.

“Carrot tops are green,” I said. “My hair is not green.”

Ha! I thought that would do the trick. I thought I was soooo very clever. I thought I had shut them up for good. But noooo!

My friend, Nels, looked at me for a moment, silent. But I could see the wheels a-turning in his mind; and I knew that I ought to clobber him right then and there before he spoke.

“If you say so… Carrot Bottom,” he said, grinning like the freakin’ Cheshire Cat.

Grrr-Argh!

That’s what I get for having witty friends.

I’ve had other nicknames though, names not related to the color of my hair. There is ‘Spacey Stacy’, because I have a tendency to be rather silly. ‘Lefty’ (no I’m not left-handed). I just so happen to have three small moles on my abdomen that form the letter ‘L’. ‘Stann’ because… well, it went something like this:

Ben: [Talking to Bob's friends...] “Bob is dating a girl from St. Ann.”
Bob: “No, I’m dating someone named Stann.”

I guess you had to be there. Needless to say, once I met Bob’s friends (now my friends as well), I made sure to quash that nickname. Stann, I am not.

Lastly, a very dear friend of mine has given me the nickname of ‘Sandy’; and I have to say that it is my favorite nickname thus far. I just like it. It is a combination of my first and last name. It’s peppy and fun… just like me!

So. What about you? Do you have any nicknames? If so, what are they?

Technorati Tags: nickname, Carrot Top, Red, Blondie

I have no idea what to write right now, but figured I ought to post something. Since Joe’s death I’ve had a lot of thoughts running through my mind; thoughts of making some changes in my life. Mainly, I feel a need to clear out all of the clutter in my house and get organized. I need to spend more quality time with my kids. I need to trash the junk foods and restock my cabinets with healthy foods. I need to establish an exercise routine for me and the kids. I need to draw up a will. Joe didn’t have one. I guess he thought he’d live forever. Don’t we all?

Right now I’m sitting here thinking of all the things I should be doing today, and wondering how many of them I will get accomplished. The washing machine is loaded and running, so that’s a start. Since I was sick most of December and could not keep up with the housework, my home is exceptionally cluttered right now. …more so than usual. …which is quite frightening, really.

Sometimes, I feel like the walls are closing in on me. Literally. I’m not kidding here. One has to do what I call the ‘Anderson Shuffle’ just to get from one room to another in this chaos. It’s a wonder my waistline hasn’t shrunk with all the hip-swinging movements I have to make just to maneuver around all of the obstacles.

There is stuff that I’ve boxed and bagged to sell on eBay, stuff that my packrat hubby has amassed, furniture that we don’t have room for, and stuff that needs to go out to the shed until Spring–like my lawn furniture cushions and the box fan. By the time we get around to putting it away, it’ll be Spring already.

You should see the mess of stuff sitting on my kitchen table right now; clean, folded clothes, ironing board and iron, a basket of flowers from Joe’s funeral, a pillow w/o a case, a board game, newspapers, unopened mail, the canopy from my daughter’s bed (needs to be re-hung), shampoo, conditioner, Febreeze, Lysol, a bag of tortilla chips, a new phone book (still in the delivery bag), a magazine, two books, a roll of packing tape, a can cozy, a cookie sheet (that I can’t put away because there is too big a pile of junk sitting in front of the cabinet door), a pencil, 3 rolls of toilet paper, my son’s stocking stuffers, an MP3 player arm band, and a coloring page that I picked up from Family Video on Christmas Eve. It was Peter Pan in Return To Never Land. How could I pass on that?

I need help. Either that, or a dump truck to haul most of this stuff away. Or a bigger house to store it all in. Or a shed the size of a house. Something. Anything. I need to make some changes before I suffocate. I need to get organized. I need to breathe.

And on that lovely note, I suppose I should end this post and get to work clearing off the kitchen table. Besides, it’s time to switch the laundry over into the dryer now as well.

Wow. What a fun post this was. Tune in next time as I share the joys of scrubbing toilets and fluffing couch cushions. Tentatively titled: The Treasure Beneath The Crumbs.