anyone who knows me knows i love the show “eastenders.” its a british soap opera that has been going on since 1985. i have been watching it here in the states on my public tv station since 1991. however, we being, oh, say, 2.5 to 3 years behind britain, i could say i have been watching it since at least 1989. yippee for me i s'pose.

anyway, we now have the option of digital cable. i don't know that i will have the time to watch additional tv, anyway; but they *do* have BBC America. the difficulty of that is that BBC America is actually up-to-date. i saw an episode once while at my mother-in-law's; and it was surreal to see frank butcher(one of the funniest, snarkiest characters on tv) married to peggy mitchell (one of the bitchiest characters known to humankind.)

so do i bother getting it and get incredibly confused? bad enough buddies like scally used to torture me with spoilers…

Which Rock Chick Are You?

…so i wake up this morning, and the news is interviewing a guy from one of the two or three groups protesting in our lovely hometown, your nation's capitol. this guy is being asked by the newscaster, “so are you going to stay on the sidewalks during your protest today or will you be in the street congesting rush hour traffic?” and this d00d starts going on and on and on about how the US should stop giving military aid to Colombia, how 20 Colombians die every millisecond, etc…

i used to be proudly left of center. i still am, actually. but my first reaction when this wet-behind-the-ears college d00d started spewing his profundities?

“answer the fucking question. are you going to fuck up a.m. rush hour traffic by having a lie-down in the middle of Constitution Ave?”

fuckwits. you aren't going to win any converts to your cause by making john and jane doe 2 hours late for work on a monday morning. with the aggressive drivers here, you are more likely to become road pizza.

how would you people like it if i came to your college campus and laid down in the middle of your street and didn't let you get to your freaking “Pygmy Women of World Civilizations” class?

boo fucking hoo.

GRRRRRR!

remember how i was pissed because the wonderful renovation project across the street (Motto: We'll Be Done Before the Next Millenium!) had people from other sites dumping trash into their dumpster… and that garbage often ends up on my lawn? how nails from the site ended up in the street and ultimately punctured my tire? how they took down my cable? etc..

well, they are doing it again. i took pictures this morning with my handy-dandy camera of gentlemen trucking in trash and dumping it. i called up arlington county. and the gentleman there said that there was no complaint request from march to come and check out the site! further, he said how hard this might be to enforce such a problem.

i am furious that my request never resulted in action, especially when the gentleman told me he would come out and take a look! i am pissed that they continue to dump trash from other sites. if it is within their legal right to do so, then i will shut up. but i was told by the previous guy that this was a bozo no-no. argh.

BC has the nutcracker barbie. BC and i were playing with her yesterday, only i made the grave error of putting another barbie's clothes on nutcracker barbie.

“no, no, mommy,” BC cried. “you are putting the wrong clothes on crack barbie!”

gee. i woulda figured that crack barbie couldn't care less whether she had clothes on or not, as long as she had her fix…

with many thanks to marnie…

I am Mario. I like to jump around, and would lead a fairly serene and aimless existence if it weren't for my friends always getting into trouble. I love to help out, even when it puts me at risk. I seem to make friends with people who just can't stay out of trouble. What Video Game Character Are You?

heehee. BC is running around the house singing, “Hey, Ho, Let's Go!” i bet the other moms at preschool don't teach their kids awful things like that 😉

ok, let me preface this. i mean absolutely no disrespect toward anyone on this whatsoever. but i don't think i understand this very well. can anyone explain it?

yep, that's me. after driving through DC to return BC to her school (after a traumatic trip to the ear, nose and throat specialist, who says that if she doesn't lose the tube in her ear by the end of august, he will have to remove it surgically — not a huge deal, but she was really, really pissed after the first surgery…), i had had it. there was traffic out the wazoo, people driving like morons, tourists walking around like it was their first trip to planet earth. and just my luck: Constitution Ave was being shut down for the DC Emancipation Day parade. they hadn't held this parade in 100 years, so go figure that i'd pick the day they decided to do it again after a century to drive into town.

i cruised on down to the south side of town. i opened my windows and my sun roof – it is going to hit 90 degrees today in the swamptown – and then, it happened. i turned on “Blitzkrieg Bop” really, really loud. and there i was: mommy in a volvo, blasting the ramones, scaring the pants off of john and jane doe tourist dressed in their kmart sensibilities. two guys next to me in a pickup looked freaked out when i shrieked, “hey, ho, let's go!” at the top of my lungs. i guess i can't blame them.

there are days when i can scarcely believe i am on the close side of 40.

ok,ok, so its bad enough that BC looks like one of those abominable Precious Moments figurines (she, of course, is adorable, but those figurines make me wanna empty the contents of my stomach and then some). but today, she looked up at me and said, “momma, wanna grow a heart?” i said, “honey, you can't grow a heart.” and she said, “yes momma. take a little sugar, some salt, some smiles, etc…” it sounded like a Hallmark card. but the fact that it came from a 3-year-olds mouth and mind makes it a little more wonderful. (and makes whatever adult who comes up with that crap from Hallmark just a little bit pathetic.)