"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

HAPPY HALLOWEENIE!

I was trying to think, how on earth can I incorporate my belly into my costume this year? And then I came up with this:
So we went to a Halloween party dressed as breakfast, which took a lot of coercing my husband (even though, if you ask me, wearing two strips of bacon over a black shirt and pants is really the easiest costume to wear for a non-costume-wearer ever). Poops is going as a scarecrow this year and I'm trying to teach him how to say "trick or treat". We've been practicing, but all he seems to come out with is: "Gank goo!" which is "thank you!" That works too. Happy Halloweenie!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh (that's my ghost sound)

OK so I'm bringing out the old "haunts" this Halloween for this week's Heads or Tails. It's an article I wrote for the AP a few years ago about some local hauntings in Salt Lake City, however, the funny part was that I apparently "attracted" a ghost during one of my interviews. The tape really is scary sounding, I played it for everyone in my office and they agree. It is on one of those teensy tiny interview-recorder tapes so I haven't dubbed it over. I did, however, call a priest who told me that I need to get over it. That helped. Anyway, my advice is the advice I got from the psychic in the piece: don't put up your ghost antenna.



Ghosts lend spookiness, spice to Utah sites
by Christie L. Hill Associated Press

Halloween 2003 is a memory, but the ghosts of Utah past -- some happy, some tortured, some who just can't let go -- continue to haunt, psychics say.

If you believe in such things (recent polls indicate Americans are split on the topic of ghosts), it only makes sense that Utah's rich history is brimming with spirits.

A high-haunt area is This Is the Place Heritage Park, a Mormon pioneer village replica near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in east Salt Lake City, where storyteller Michael Bennett recounts tales about the sounds of "children's voices laughing when there were no children around."

Bennett's never seen any ghosts, but he's heard enough stories to make him a believer. "I think that there's been enough legitimate reporting of things seen and heard," Bennett said.

He's talking about the strange occurrences at Brigham Young's old forest farmhouse, reputed to be one of the most haunted houses in Utah. It's hard to miss this pink, two-story, stucco house with a wraparound porch when you drive into the park. The 140-year old home was moved from its original site along I-80 back in 1975.

The Mormon pioneer's ghost apparently wasn't too keen on the move and stayed behind. The ghost of Anne Eliza Webb Young, Brigham Young's 19th wife, is said to haunt the house now.
"Some of the things happened before it was moved that have not happened since it was moved," Bennett said. "There's been a change in personnel."

That's typical, according to Salt Lake City psychic Margaret Ruth, whose morning radio show frequently muses on the otherworldly.

"If I remodeled, I might get rid of a lot of residual energy," Ruth says. "All I'll have left is those who are very attached to the site."

But whatever lurks in the eaves of Brigham Young's old home these days has frayed the nerves of at least one of the park's guides. She won't set foot back in the home, at least not alone.
"In October, in the evenings, it starts to get dark a little early, so if you went up there to close the blinds by yourself, you had this feeling that somebody else was in the room with you," said Pamela Schiess. She was a guide at the farmhouse for two years but has since moved to another job within the park. She's much happier.

Schiess says it's commonplace for park guides to have ghost stories. Even some of the park's visitors have left the park with chilling tales of their own. A student on a field trip says he once saw a pioneer woman, dressed in pioneer clothing late at night at the park, and when he turned back around she was gone. The area is locked up at night, so there's no way someone could've gotten in, says Schiess.

Is the story little more than the overactive imagination of youth?
Consider the supposed sightings of an angry Mary Fielding Smith, widow of martyred Mormon leader Hyrum Smith, who's been seen standing outside her home up on a hill in the park, wagging her finger, annoyed that her house was put there, facing the wrong way.

The ghouls aren't confined to This Is the Place.

Workers at the old Capitol Theatre, another infamous haunt spot, have named a live-in ghost "George." And the owner of Cassidy's Bar in Salt Lake City lets an old, attention-starved, emaciated, smoking and drinking cowboy stay there rent-free, as long as he doesn't hurt anyone. The owner said the supernatural bar-dweller once wanted attention so badly, he pushed a piece of equipment onto her son's head, requiring four stitches.

Skeptical? You're not alone. A recent Harris Interactive poll conducted online shows that Americans are split when it comes to believing in ghosts. The poll also showed those 65 and over are the least likely to believe in ghosts.

The doubters don't faze Margaret Ruth. "I didn't have to be crowned by the Spiritual Society. Psychic awareness belongs to everybody," she says, "and some people choose to do more with it than others."

Anyone can attract ghosts if they want to, Ruth says before adding a warning: "Most ghosts are really, really boring."

But on one recent day at this reporter's apartment, where Ruth insisted on conducting an interview after sensing a spirit over the phone, Ruth felt the presence of something that was anything but boring.

With deep breaths and eyelids flitting, Ruth tuned in to the spiritual world and quickly sensed the energy of a woman who died too young, who didn't know she was dead. The young woman just wanted some attention, Ruth said. "I think she was quite attracted to us."

A playback of the interview tape revealed an inexplicable, bloodcurdling scream that drowns out Ruth's voice as she and the reporter are talking. Neither heard a scream during the interview, and it only turned up on the tape.

A true believer might say the tape picked up an EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon. "It raised the hair on the back of my neck," said Ruth, after hearing the tape played back, "and that doesn't usually happen."

Anyone who's heard the tape agrees it's bizarre, a little creepy. Then again, it is Utah, where ghosts wander freely.

Or do they?

A Full Nine Months

No, no baby yet. But it's been a little busy around here lately. The longer I go with this pregnancy, the more I find to do. I had four lists going yesterday and I hope to knock three of them out today.

This morning we passed a milestone. I made it! We're 9 months!!! I've never been 9 months before! I don't know if it was the butt shots or if my body just did it on its own, but we're there and it's a miracle. I can't even explain the overwhelming peace I have within myself.

Last week I had my last butt shot and the nurse and I had a moment when it was all over and I had made it to the end and we hugged. I felt like I did on graduation day when you realize it's all over and a weight is lifted. My "sack" has moved up, so that's no longer an issue. And my blood pressure is a wonderful 102/70. Now we're betting in the "baby pool" on when he'll arrive. I fully expect now to make it through November to the 26th, but who knows, there is a full moon November 12.

That's the quick update. I know I've become a "weekly" blogger recently but I hope you'll still visit from time to time regardless. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Eddie Vedder

Raise your hand if you remember who he is. I had a rude awakening the other day. I was wandering through the mall, looking for some shoes when I decided I was craving an iced latte. And you know those CDs on the counters at Starbucks? Well, I saw one with Eddie Vedder on it. (Lead singer of Pearl Jam. Don't worry- we can 'don't ask don't tell if you didn't remember.) And here's where I'm going to feel really old here. Back in my day, (yes, before cell phones and laptop computers-- sometime in the early 90's) he was a GOD to most girls in college, at least to me and the chicks in my little group. And his picture on the CD here in 2007 was a little surprising. He looked old. Wah! Eddie Vedder looked old! And I was so taken aback by it that I asked the fetus cashier guy if that really was Eddie Vedder and didn't he look old??!!! And he stared at me blankly and said, "Sorry, I don't know who that is."

Of course I felt like and old lady-slash-idiot and of course I had to call my husband right away and relay the story, and he just said, "Yes. You're old. Now put down your crochet and walk away."

Yes, I'm crocheting a blanket at the moment.

Press the full button!

The worst thing about spending time among a million family members is the tendency to feed Poops everything. It's not anyone's fault, he's a scavenger. He'll go from plate to plate and grunt and go "OOh, OOh!" like a monkey, pointing at their food until they give him some. It's embarrassing actually if we're among non-family and he does this. We've been practicing at home with the whole "No, honey, that's not yours," or "You've already had lunch, let Aunt Clairanne eat in peace." And it works at home, mostly, just not when we're out. Like this weekend. My family threw me a shower on Saturday and my sister and her husband were in town for it, and it was wonderful and beautiful. I actually have some hysterical pictures of us playing games like competing for the first one to put a diaper on made out of toilet paper, or my 92 year old grandmother winning the game where you pass the pacifier from person to person using only a pencil in your mouth.

After all the shower-ness, Sunday we were spent. We all layed around like beached whales with football on in the background, awaking only for meals. After dinner, we went to have ice cream at a place called "Wide Licks." Yes, extremely naughty sounding, which makes shoveling ice cream in my piehole that much naughtier. And Poops made his normal rounds, this time with my sister after having gorged himself on chocolate ice cream already, picking on her marshmallows from her ice cream. I thought we had stopped him from stuffing his face in time, I actually had said that I thought he probably had enough ice cream, because he would have definitely eaten more.

But I was too late. As we drove home, I heard a cackle type cough, followed by a nasty, stinky smell that could only be throw up, so I pulled over. And on his shirt was a marshmallow still fully in tact. Isn't that lovely.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

The Triad

Have I mentioned yet that two of my very best friends who I have known since the 7th grade are also pregnant? Yep! All three of us. Me, at 33 weeks, Ellen at 20 weeks, and Clairanne at about 16 weeks. It's simply mad! And to boot, we all already have boys. And we may all be having another round of them. The jury is still out on Clairanne, but Ellen and I are having boys. This is what we do. We pump out boys.
Our lives are a far cry from when Ellen was drum major in the marching band and we all wore our tight polyester band-geek outfits complete with ruffle and cumberbund and feathers for our hats in the hot hot sun. (We did have a half-time show that was the James Bond theme and it completely rocked, our awesome drumline included. Sorry, I got all geeked out again for a second.) So yes, we were band-geeks together, but I'd like to call us "musicians." Then we went off to college and got all hoochied out together when we went out dancing and carrying around bottles of vodka (I am so glad we missed the era of camera phones!) We called ourselves "the triad." And look at us now! All pregnated out and married off and adult-like! Yeah right.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Where's my shoes??!!!

Oh just one of the many complications of getting larger by the second is thinking, "I really have to bend down to get that," then re-thinking it for a minute to weigh out the item's actual importance, then deciding against it. I have noticed over the past week that my shoes have been disappearing and this morning when I asked my husband to look under the couch for a missing shoe for me, he pulled out this:

So that's where they were! Now where's my cat?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

I'm in a quandary. (Scroll down for Heads or Tails)

I am finding myself in an interesting quandary. When I created this blog just about one year ago, I had a 5 month old. His nickname was "Poops". I did not, however, count on being about two seconds away from popping out another kid the exact following year. So when this one is born, what on earth am I to do about the title of my blog? It's not going to be "The Mis-Adventures of Captain Poopy" because now there will be two Poopies. When I think about adding the littler Poops to the name, I think about the cartoon "Captain Caveman" when it was a second go-round for him on Saturday morning and they added his son to the cartoon. So you would hear him yelling in his caveman voice at the beginning of the show: "Captain Caaa-a-aaaaaaaaaaave-mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! (And son!)" So that's what I hear in my head. But that makes no sense.

So what am I to do? I guess I can keep the link the same and update the title, or even re-work the whole darned header, but I can't decide which to do. Especially because I want even less to confuse anyone who actually comes here to visit me. So, anyone have any ideas? Or even better, ideas for a title? It is possible that I might turn this into a contest.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Heads or Tails: Stack

It's "heads" in this week's "Heads or Tails" and the theme is "stack." Which I had a really hard time thinking about because all I kept thinking about were boobs. As in, "she's stacked." Is that pervy?


Anyway, I figured that my life is completely made up of stacks, so I'll list 10 of them lying around my house because that should be pretty easy.

1. Diapers! (of course.)
2. Boxes of decaf tea (chamomile and Sleepytime) that my sister-in-law got on discount from the military base for me (thanks!!)
3. New baby clothes for littler Poops. He can't have alll hand-me-downs.
4. A nice big stack of Parent and Real Simple magazines in the bathroom, just in case one might get stuck in there for a while.
5. A stack of brown leather boxes in the office full of crafting stuff, like scrapbooking paper, ribbon, fabric glue, stickers, embellishments. Which brings me to the question, what is it about motherhood or even pregnancy for that matter that moves a person to wanna craft? I have crochet class with my mom tomorrow night (I am desperate to make a "coming home" blanket.) Where will the madness end?
6. A stack of books on my desk that are my life; the AP Handbook, my pregnancy journal and planner.
7. Gift cards. (Ooh la la!)
8. Christmas cards. Yes! Christmas Cards! I ordered mine already and I love them! Why not get prepared for which will be a completely nutty holiday season?
9. Coupons which I always leave at home and allow to expire.
10. Labeled boxes underneath my bathroom cabinet for hair stuff, face stuff, foot stuff, nail stuff, etc. etc.


Don't forget Heads or Tails Tuesdays at Skittles Place! Anyone can join in!

No Longer the University of Southern Florida

Obviously as a USF alumni who graduated in what feels like 1898, I am proud to be watching a football team that is now ranked in the top 10! Oh how I have waited, even dreamed, about this day! I remember what it was like before the school even had a football team. We watched basketball back then. I also didn't have a computer yet (no, I didn't chisel my essays into stone tablets -- but I did have a "word processor", does that count?) Then, once they had a football team, we were referred to by everyone, including sportscasters, as "The University of Southern Florida," which was just so annoying (it's SOUTH Florida!). But it showed how unknown we were and I was always sad about that. And then, even up to about two years ago, we'd go to watch a football game at Beefs or some other sportsbar (in Tampa mind you! Where USF is located!) and not only would no one in the place know that USF was playing, but we'd have to fight with people (mostly UF fans) to get our game put up on one of the bigger tv's and not the teensy one way up high in the back corner with no sound.

So Friday was historic, not just because our team finally broke into the top 10, but most of all, because husband and I were in a bar/restaurant that actually had an hour and 45 minute wait (thankfully we got there before then) and everyone in it was there to watch USF. And everyone in it roared when USF did anything even remotely good. It was amazing. I couldn't even believe my eyes and ears! And the game was actually sold out! I remember watching it on tv when the cameras would try desperately to focus on the little groups of fans scattered around the huge Raymond James Stadium so as to make it look like USF actually had fans. That, or the fans of whatever team they were playing outnumbered USF's. Or, we would actually go because it was easy to get tickets and they were really cheap and we'd be too drunk to notice what the score was or who won.

And no, I didn't get to go Friday night and for that, I am sad. I am too bulbous now. But I won't ask for too much. Just the fact that people actually know what the heck school this is is enough for me. Finally.