Sarah: Update on Adventures in Babysitting

Different day, same kids

Rachel: What were those treats in your car?
Sarah: They're for another time for you guys.
Tim: Like a secret stash for emergencies?
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: Guess where my mom keeps her stash: in her bed!!
Tim: She ate all the emergency treats.
Rachel: It must have been SOME emergency.

Lisa: Stressed much?

Here are a few more recurring themes from my dream journal:

Lisa: This Week's Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us

Despite being amused by The Shizzolator, I vowed never to watch Doggy Fizzle Televizzle. However, last night I found myself watching it and laughing out loud. What's next--listening to Kid Rock?

"Hatorade! Because all that hatin' leaves you parched! Now in extra strength for catty bitches!"

Sarah: At the old ball game

A few days ago I went to a local minor league baseball game. Why do I have so much rage toward mascots? [I don't know, but I share your inexplicable mascot hatred. --Lisa]

Anyway... We sat several rows in front of guys who obviously derived more pleasure from heckling than from watching the actual game. A particularly amusing episode was when a first baseman of the opposing team first made his appearance wearing a hard plastic hat. I, along with my companions, was confused as to why he was wearing a hat which, except for its lack of protective ear flaps, was like a batting helmet. When the first run was hit, the heckler (after many exclamations of "OH! OH! OH!" as the ball soared through the air) could think of nothing to say when the aforementioned first baseman caught the ball except "NICE HAT!!" I smiled as I recognized this desperate act to maintain superiority over someone who had demonstrated greater ability to catch than our batter's ability to hit.

Later in the game when a fly ball resulted in an error when the same first baseman was unable to pluck the ball out of the sky, a heckler exclaimed "YOUR HAT COULDN'T HELP YOU THERE!" In an act of defiance, the player blew his bubblegum into a shimmering pink orb that the sun danced across. Unfortunately, his ego, like the bubble, was deflated when the heckler pronounced "HE CAN BLOW A GREAT BUBBLE, BUT HE CAN'T CATCH THE BALL!"

In conclusion, our team eventually won the game, and I think the hecklers eventually went hoarse, because their cries diminished as the game continued. Also, my brother was able to steal the mascot's can of silly string and use it against him. Hurrah!

Lisa: Vah Beach

So, I had a dream that Sarah and I were walking down a sidewalk with my mom, just talking, and she said "But don't you want to lose weight?" and we (Sarah and I) linked arms and started skipping and singing at the top of our lungs. The chorus of our song started with something like this: "It's easier to get FAAAT....than THIIIIIINNNNN!!!!!!" All in all, though, it was better than the dream with the girl whose face had no skin on it. [Shiver.] As has been previously stated, I have serious problems.

In other news, my conference in Virginia Beach (or as the locals call it, "Vah Beach") is going much better than the one in Springfield last April. We're staying in this quaint old hotel that is really charming and fun. No narsty condom wrappers on the floor, and this time Blake got to come with me! Oh yeah, and the conference itself has been good, too.

I should also add that I am writing this blog from our new and fabulous PowerBook G4! Hurrah for Financial Aid!! And for exclamation points!!!

Sarah: posty mcbloggson

Because of my lack of an internet connection at home, I frequent neighboring public libraries to check my email and google around. At each of these libraries, small whiteboards with the time you began using the computers keep you from exceeding your half hour time limit. (A half hour is simply not long enough to satisfy my internet cravings. Sometimes I have to library hop to pacify my addiction.)

One of these libraries that I usually don't patronize (I try not to talk down to libraries in general. ha... ha... Okay, not funny.) has a more strict policy. Instead of writing down your own time, a certain employee has apparently been hired exclusively for the purpose of sitting at a desk and writing down the time when you come in to use the computers. Because you never know when someone is going to commit the devastating act of falsifying a start time! This employee cracked me up for other reasons, besides his apparent disposibility (is that a word?). [I can't even begin to understand what you meant by that, so, no, I don't think it's a word. -- Lisa] He comes around and tells patrons when they only have a minute left. Because, you know, that little whiteboard is a ticking time bomb and every minute over a half hour will upset the balance of the universe.

Also, he wears a fannypack. Always. So that he can keep his essential belongings with him at all times. Because sometimes his desk is just too far away. I wonder what he keeps in this fannypack. A first aid kit? A dry erase marker for false time correction? Nasal spray? I'm thinking of developing a librarian fannypack, with all the librarian essentials. I could give it to Lisa as a graduation present. [Hey, that's a good idea. I would pay good money for a bumbag full of librarian essentials. You know, like black lipstick, fingerless black net gloves, a roach clip, and giant safety pins! -- Lisa] Not that I think all librarians are tragically uncool. Some are great, especially my sister! This guy just looks as if an incorrect calculation of your computer use time would make him swoon.

Update: Today he was wearing the fanny pack, but one of his pockets was still bulging with stuff. Like, the fanny pack doesn't have a great enough capacity? The time that I must relinquish use of the computer is 5:19. Not that I care, but why not just put down 5:20? It's not as if a mutiny would begin if other library patrons learned that I had exceeded the time limit by one minute. Library Guy also came by one of the computers to adjust a white board that had been placed in its slot on its side. Oh, the horror! I don't know why I pay so much attention. In the grand scheme of things, his actions have little or no effect on me whatsoever. But if people didn't let little things like this distract them from what really matters, we'd have hardly any blogs at all.

Lisa: If you sprinkle when you tinkle...

I will never tire of reading the phrases people search for that lead to our site. Today the one that made me laugh was "do not pee on the toilet seat clip art." I looked for a picture online that I could post for our gentle readers, but even I was stumped. Good luck, lady!

Bonus image:

A good way to keep unwelcome guests from using your toilet: The clear plastic bug and barbed wire seat! Only $132!

Sarah: Return to Pooh Corner

At a recent nannying job, I came across a disturbing light fixture. In a Winnie the Pooh themed room, a charming lamp adorned the dresser. The base of this lamp was a staircase with Christopher Robin ascending and Winnie the Pooh scrambling behind. All this seems very cheery and appropriate for an infant's bedroom.

I was disturbed, however, by Christopher Robin's missing head. Seriously. Apparently during some escape attempt by the infant or in rough play, Christopher Robin had been decapitated. The result was a headless form in pajama pants and a bathrobe walking up a stairway to an unknown and possibly sinister destination while an overly curious, pint-sized bear -- dressed in human clothing, possibly because of its idolic nature to a headless cult -- followed a few steps behind.

Lisa: Single White Female

Finally, I can put my psycho-stalker tendencies to good use by implementing my own branch of "The Date My Sister Project". (This site is hilarious, but beware of Gator popups.) Don't worry, Sarah--you'll be married in no time! I'm mostly kidding, but she really could use some help finding a decent guy.

More humor from search-phrase list:

"edward furlong 2003 [is he going out with anyone]"

I have to say, Edward Furlong is not the Crow: Wicked Prayer cast member that I would choose to lust after. But, to each his own. And I like the unusual use of the brackets around that desperate, searching question...

Sarah: Elementary, Dear Watson

For several years, I've been battling the license plate bending trolls. Seriously! I'll walk out to my car one day, and one of my license plates will be inexplicably bent away from my car. For a while I had friends with shrivelly raisins for brains (not ALL of my friends, just a few!) and I thought that perhaps they would bend my plates as a prank. Not a funny prank, but an appropriately mindless one. However, when I moved away to college, my plates continued to bend. I considered that, living in the dorms, this may be an occupational hazard of being a college student. Still, I could not understand why none of my friends or roommates seemed to struggle with bent plates.

Today, however, I believe I have found the cause. I went through the car wash to restore my beloved little car to its favorite shiny clean state, and when walking out to my car again after picking something up at home, I discovered that my license plate was as badly bent as it ever was. It's been the carwash all along! Although I sometimes wash my car by hand, whenever I rely upon the machinery in our modern world to do this menial chore for me, I always use the same carwash. It's a comfort-in-familiarity thing. I can't explain it. Anyway, I think I've solved the mystery of the bent license plates. We can all sleep better tonight.

Lisa: good old Ben Franklin saves the day again

I'm afraid I do not take full advantage of my Franklin Day Planner. I don't think all those structured little pages were made for goals like "become a universally revered gatekeeper of knowledge," or "don't be a fat bitch." And I just feel silly writing "7:00 - 8:00 pm: Gilmore Girls" in the appointments column. Most importantly, I think that anything of enough personal importance to be worth subjecting to that much detailed analysis is too private to be written down for other people to find and laugh at. However, I did notice several months ago that behind a tab labeled "Discover," there were pages for recommended books, movies and websites.

On a separate (but not unrelated) note, I always arrive at the video store and then promptly forget the names of all the films I've been meaning to check out. I wander listlessly around the store, watching Michael Jackson videos on the overhead monitors and making faces while reading the back of the A Woman, Her Men, and Her Futon video box.

In a brilliant and unexpected move, I decided to start writing down recommended movies in the prefabricated "Recommended Movies" list in my planner. Here are the movies on the list that I still haven't seen:

[Eternally lengthy list deleted at Sarah's request.]

Hmm. Maybe I should have alphabetized those. Anyway, if you have any suggestions for more, or disagree with the suggestions above, feel free to let me know. I'll try to remember to cross movies off when I see them.