I'm not sure what's going on at Mrs. Olsen's house. I mean, I feel like I have a lot to say, but have proceeded on a mystic impetus to shut up. Or maybe turn off. Since I'm averaging one post a month right now (does anybody miss me?) my mystic impetus has temporarily aligned with the mass reminiscing, crossroads of life, wetting-your-pants impossibility of that fateful day: September 11, 2001. Those double elevens hit me today (the 22nd) and said: tick-tock, almost out of time, don't forget. Never forget.

Nearly two weeks have passed since this wee blog was updated. And I tell you what, day after day I've been thinking and runnin' around and doing other things and all the while in the back of my head rests this thought: I'm killin' the blog. I'm killin' the blog.

If it was the early 90's and I was at the edge of a mid-life crisis, I would paint myself pretty with baby blue clown makeup, don a feather boa and get a wish-I-was-famous Glamour Shot.  Truth is, it's a new century and Glamour Shots went the way of Mary Stuart Masterson (my favorite 80's movie star...where are you?).  Thank Goodness for that.  Except for the Mary Stuart Masterson part.

Speaking of movie stars, every recent flick I've seen lately asks the question: should I steal her do? Of course, the bony power face is lacking, so who can pull this crap off?



Loved Wright-Penn's falling around the face layers in State of Play.  BTW, bit all my fingernails OFF during this flick.  That means it was exciting and good.


Duplicity was good for those that like to solve the storyline, and get it wrong. I think it may have played some trick cards even for those that like this genre. But what am I talking about? Back to the hair.  Who doesn't want Julia Roberts hair ever. Big loose curls. Do perms exist that can do this? Will I get free leg-warmers for using the word perm when asking for advice?

Yes, I've even seen the new X-Men movie. Here's Wolverine true love. The long layers are calling me Silverfox. But let's be honest, I will not spend more than 15 minutes on my hair most days. Can I have hair like this and keep it easy to tame in under 30 minutes?


Speaking of beast, hear me roar:


make-up free and proud...and needing to feel pretty.

When I was in 7th grade I went to a school that looked like a prison and had a hairstyle fitting for a criminal. If you were to stand outside the school, you would see mullets and ratty hair floating body-less from the state penitentiary windows which were set no lower than 60 inches from the floor. Did I mention the school was concrete blocks? Unpainted? With no windows from which you could get a decent view? And had to be closed down a few years back while they detoxed the asbestos from the premises? (NOTE TO HOMETOWN: Get a new school!)

And yet while I did my term there, what with my permed hair and white-washed jeans, I didn't think of architecture as enhancement to my education. I was only aware of E S P R I T bags casually loaded with hairspray, combs, gum, and magazines draped on lockers purposely cracked in order to display our latest in Idaho fashion accessories. I saw Guess Jeans and Converse shoes, and grocery store delis across the street so I wouldn't be caught in the school cafeteria during lunch hour. And like every American-made kid in 1987, I beleaguered my parents with the fact (like all my siblings) that I needed a Nintendo so I could save The Princess.

It worked! All five kids on Apache Avenue got a Nintendo that Christmas and it came with Super Mario Brothers. I plunked my butt down on the couch the entire Christmas break, and cleared a huge stash of Christmas ribbon candy while I learned about crabs of death, mushrooms for growth, and dragons of fear. All the while I chomped on some of the crummiest candy invented.

I gained fifteen pounds that Christmas break, and I didn't even save the princess. But I kept working throughout my 7th grade year, and eventually I made it all the way to the 8th world, on the 4th level, where I met my fate with my final and last dragon to save the bloomered and bonneted Princess.

And then I was cured. I went through high school and college watching boys (and men) live and die for video games, and thought they needed to get a life.

The point is that after years of prodding, The Mister of the House finally convinced me to get a Wii (what with the family games and live-action-off-your-rear aspect of the whole enterprise). And soon after that, we went to the Wii store online and purchased the classic 1980's Nintendo Game Super Mario Brothers.

And it has been on my Wii for about a year. Once in a while I would sit and try my skills, die a quick death, and go fix dinner.

But this March, the bug bit me and I decided I needed to save The Princess. And this week I discovered how to warp to world 8 and it threw another log onto the fire. And today? My kids have been eating Cap'n Crunch while I practiced and practiced until my left thumb was aching (cringe) and guess what?

I saved her. And I squealed just like a princess, and my kids (bless their little hearts) cheered for me.


Okay, so I got caught up with Mario and became a bad mom and now that I can breathe again I can step away, cross the street, and study the architecture of this situation.

FACT:

• A 50-inch Plasma TV, when turned on for five hours in one day, uses the same amount of energy as a refridgerator (the most common energy hog in your household).
• I'm quite sure that when including the nature documentary the family is watching this Friday night, my 52-inch Plasma TV has been on on for five hours today (cringe. again.)
• Tomorrow I will try to make up for it by honoring EARTH HOUR (and you should too). Even the temple is doing it.
• From 8:30 to 9:30, it's LIGHTS OUT.
• Got that! Saturday March 28th, pull out your candles and have a romantic dinner, tell ghost stories, or suck your thumb in the dark while the LIGHTS ARE OUT between 8:30 and 9:30 pm.

See what life is like in the Amazon, where all the women in the family are six feet tall...

When my two brothers married tall, thin, gorgeous, athletic, six-feet-tall Amazon women, then Mrs. Olsen officially became the troll of the family. Whenever we get together for the girls weekend, the sissies-in-law, together with my own blood sister Niki (also six feet tall) generate mall buzz from every trendy male wondering if they all play basketball. The troll (me) and the runt (my littlebig sis Monica) go in for the sales after sending in the Amazon league in for the block.

Where they dazed civilization like giant stunners from the jungle, Mrs. Olsen merely seemed to be raised by monkeys.

Meet Keri. She was the first person to marry into my Apache Avenue clan. She dated my brother when I was a wee girl of eleven or so. The first time he brought her to meet the family, I sat on her lap. Farted. Then licked her forehead.


Oh sorry, you don't speak monkey? Right. So Keri, that actually meant that I thought you were funny, beautiful, smart, witty, and I wanted you to marry my brother. Thanks for taking the time to catch the translation.

Keri? This public humiliation trial is allowing you to heal right? How about the Olsen's? Are you still there? Do you still love me?



Sooo...Derek and Keri. What makes their love unique? He's a tease, but not in a mean way. She's got wit sharper than a two-edged sword. This smalltown Idaho boy stunned the family when he decided to be a doctor. She wowed the planet by working her way up to Chief Financial Officer of the University Hospital, slashing the bro's tuition while earning several digits herself. I mean, I don't know whether to groom the locks for lice or take up note-taking on my clipboard whenever I see Keri. Needless to say, when the bro finished his forever tenure as overworked student, Keri stepped away from the glory and fame of being tall, gorgeous, and corporate and started raising up giant offspring that dominate the basketball court. The brother's adorable goofiness, combined with Keri's wit, makes for the most beautiful duo. And amidst their many talents and experiences, you'll usually find them away from the hoity-toity board rooms and running to the next game of their kids.


Mrs. Olsen has to add, that when I finally got this picture, and started doing a little cropping and tinting on Picasa, I was smiling the entire time. Just look at my brother's smile! I can hear his weird laugh just looking at it. I'm so excited to have this picture on my kissing wall, because I know it will cure the blues on a bad day.

There's something about the ocean and it's tide, that will always bring me home. I've never lived by the ocean, but sometimes (and this might seem silly) I can feel its heartbeat. Swoosh. Washhhhh. Again. And Again. Once I slim down and can fit into my size 8's again, I shall take the Mister of the House to the beach and make out. But in the meantime, I'll share my delights from the web that always, constantly, forever, provide the following:

Laughter till it hurts. I could watch this ten times a day and laugh every time. Out loud. It shall never age for me.

The fact that he picks up the mic, then signs off his newscast officially earns him a post as newsanchor by my books. And don't forget the big cushy chair. He'll need it. That Stud.


Motherly love boils over whenever I watch Charlie and his sweet older brother. Plus those accents! If only we could adopt from the UK and have a guarantee they'd keep droppin' the R's like these little mutts. We've all seen this, but I swear it's like wine, and improves with age (i.e. the more bitter and ugly I become, the sweeter these boys remain).




Motherly Love Part Two comes from this kid. Too young and natural to not be telling the truth (in this commercial) makes me want to scoop him up and take him to a good (but clean) action flick. *P.S. he says a word that isn't a big deal in my house because I'm potty training a little boy. But maybe it's a big deal in yours**




Excited. Having been a business owner for years, and wondering how some younger people seem to despise an honest day's work, not to mention the occasional wash of apathy over issues like the war and the environment....well this next clip, in all its simple creativity, makes me stop being annoyed, and start getting excited. For the future.




Humility. Beautiful photos ask: What would it have been like to be there? I often wonder, and yet am grateful for the many written and living witnesses that tell me what my heart already knows : God is our Father. I am His Kid. He Sent His Son. And tough though it may seem at times, sacrifice, patience, humility is really the tough stuff of life.

...begin with an almost alien-like body consumption that cooks your brain it hurts so bad.

I have so much to say about childbirth and how it's a womans rite of passage, but am not sure where to start. Sometime down the road, or perhaps later in the second stage of labor, I might start that rant series, but for now? Let's just enjoy this picture of my sister-in-law prior to going into labor with her first child.

She is practically erupting down the middle and the sides. And BTW, where's your stretch marks Holly....not fair!

Growing up in Idaho, we experienced what some would call an “extensive” winter season. As in, good luck treat-or-treating without your snow boots on, and make sure your snow shovel is in your car when you come home from Spring Break. For a kid who didn’t know any different, it was the blessed time you could fly down Apache Avenue on the Flexible Flyer Sled, build snowmen in the yard, and beg your parents to sign you up for Ski School, when you and 200 other kids got to ride the after-school bus once a week and arrive at the icy slopes of Kelly Canyon just as the sun was setting. Brrrrr!

p.s. sun is our friend in winter

By the time the fourth and final week of ski school rolled around, you cursed the unknown fashion-setters of the 80’s that determined you should try to ski in your levis at all costs. Add to that the under-layers of pantyhose, long johns, and lycra and the lack of circulation enforced a pre-emptive hypothermia attack on your lower half, not to mention making your cute Guess Jeans Butt no longer cute.

It was also the time that the season started to morph from blessed to a bore. And a chore. There was only so much a mini-Idahoan could do to keep warm throughout the sunshine drought we experienced every winter. When the constantly dewey winter coats and boots started smelling like wet dog, then you worked on keeping yourself busy in the great indoors. There was always much to do, or get into, to keep yourself active during this point in the eternal Idaho Winter Season. After hunting down all the sugar cereal in the basement food storage, snooping through your older sister’s yearbooks, watching all of the Brady Bunch re-runs, and choreographing your own version of Footloose in the basement family room, after that? There was always your parents closet.

I loved snooping around that place. Floor-to-ceiling shoe cubbies held my mother's high heeled shoes that I loved to slip onto my dirty feet. I would admire my flexed calf, and then walk along my dad's many suit jackets while checking all of his inside pockets. He always had gum at church, and so I would regularly harvest his chewy leftovers forgotten in his Sunday suits.

Afterwards I would throw the heels off, then curl my toes on the edges of the stacked cubbies and monkey up to the top shelf of the closet. With the remaining inch available to my shriveled feet, I would practice my odds at reaching my dad’s money jar, or drop to the ground while leaning towards my mom’s personal weakness, individually wrapped gumdrops.

Eventually, all of my poising, leaning, falling, and balancing paid off.



It was a shoebox. A shoebox of secrets pushed deep on the tip-top shelf and practically out of reach. I positioned myself the best I could, then lunged and grabbed the shoebox in my hands. Got it! I carefully wormed back to my safety zone, then climbed down the shoe ladder to the floor where I could more easily examine the contents.



I cracked the lid and peeked inside. Before I could even see my treasure, I could smell the jackpot I had discovered: chocolate! Oh man, and not just a little box of chocolates either. A BIG Hershey Kiss of chocolate. The foil wrapper had already been taken off, and so I immediately pulled it out of the box and examined further. The underside of the chocolate kiss showed the settled krispy crunchy gems that we all love so much in our chocolate. How could I be so lucky? The base of the “kiss” was as big as a dessert plate! I could bite into this thing like an apple and hardly make a dent. Who makes this stuff? How does chocolate get this big? And why hadn’t it already been eaten by my parents?

I sat and contemplated my next course of action. I mean, how much trouble could I get into if I just replaced my next thirteen meals with my cocoa treasure? I pulled back the lid and put the oversized kiss back in the box, only to realize that it had a twin! Whaaat!? Wooo-hoooo! Hmmmm, except why are the tips of the kisses rounded off instead of curled like the regular Hershey kisses? And why are the tops orange instead of the milky brown? Why are there two big Hershey kisses that aren’t really kisses? With rounded tops instead of curls? With orange nipples?


Why do my parents have CHOCOLATE BOOBS!??


Shock swept over me! I didn’t have a full set yet, but it was unmistakable…these were boobs. Looking back now, it reminds me of a similar process I went through a few of years ago in the Health Office. While in the waiting room, I noticed a breastfeeding campaign plastered all over the walls.







Sheesh, these nurses are taking a long time to get us into the office. Oh look, dandelions! Man I loved to blow those when I was little.

Waaait a second.........Boobs!




Sheesh, these nurses are taking a long time to get us into the office. Ear scopes? I hope the doctor doesn’t jam those into my kids ear.

Waaait a second.........Boobs!








Sheesh, these nurses are taking a long time to get us into the office. Ice cream! I love ice cream. Maybe we should get an ice cream cone if we ever get out of here.

Waaait a second.........Boobs!



It was undeniable. All the chocolate in the world couldn’t dissuade me from the fact that my parents harbored oversized edible boobs in their closet. The implications were deep, as chocolate boobs likely included an attached infidelity. I mean just look at my dad! He’s always been the funniest, coolest, handsomest, smartest, and toughest guy I knew. Why wouldn’t other women think so too! (pssst: see handsome cowboy at the top of this post)


There was only one course of action I could take! It was a risk, and it would require courage only found in Back to the Future Movies, but it was the only way to get my questions answered. I took a deep breath and rose up with my secret treasure in hand, then walked into the kitchen.


MoooOom? I found this in your closet!



Wiping off her hands, my mom came over to examine my find.


Aargh! she huffed. We got those at the Archibald’s Christmas party.


When she took them from my hands I was elated and shocked at the same time. No sexy secretaries trying to pick up my handsome dad, phew! But the Archibald’s? Was it from them or from someone at the party? Either way, linking the Archibald’s as the source of my shoebox treasure blew a gasket in my little kid brain. I mean, the Archibald kids couldn’t say fart without getting their mouths filled with paprika!



What a double life these adults lead! And unnatural. Come on and eat them already! Chocolate boobs are still undeniably…..deliciously…delightfully……chocolate!