yes, i know i have been ignoring you. calm down, have some bullets:

- i have very dry eyes and have to miniature champagne bottle corks stuck in my lower tear ducts in order to wear contacts. the right one fell out and i had it replaced last week by a kind, yamukah wearing opthomologist. he dilated my pupils (which- whoa, i think 50% of a trip is from having VERY LARGE, BLACK EYEBALLS because it is quite disorientating and makes you lose your ability to focus enough to read!), numbed my right eye and popped the plug back in my tear duct. it was kinda freaky.

- i wore my new contacts for the first time yesterday only to remember i had no non prescription sunglasses to shield my tender eyes from the bright summer sun. someone once told me that people with light eyes are extra sensitive to the sun so i’ve grasped on to that explanation for my excessive squinting and bought some george! sunglasses from the wal-marts. we hates the-walmarts but we are broke due to the four hobbitses.

- the baby boys may actually be hobbits because they have embraced the idea of second breakfast, second lunch and continued snacking. they are eating me out of house and home and i’m envisioning working three jobs when they are teenagers to keep up with the food bill.

- florida! four days! my mind is beginning to stir up olfactory memories of the ocean. i am starting to embrace the idea that i’m going to the beach. i will hear the ocean lapping against the shore (i really tried to think of a better verb there than lap because it seems so cliche but lapping just fit. licking the shore? pounding the shore? telling the shore it will call tomorrow?) as i am falling asleep at night and that, my friends, makes me smile.

-the babies got their first hair cuts yesterday. the boys’ hair is extra cute and looks much less hoosier (stl term for white trash, not folks from indiana) but i miss the curls. my babies are gone! someone replaced them with toddlers when i wasn’t looking and all of the sudden i’ve forgotten how horrible it is to have three frowny, sleepless newborns and miss my babies! there are no more babies and that makes me sad. But there will be babies all around me soon so i will bottle up any left over motherly yearning and save it for impending infant head sniffing and the chubby baby toe counting of my new niece, nephew and adopted-niece (friend d’s baby. the wonderful person who came to my house, cut all of our hair and made us look fabulous for cheaper than great clips.) still- my babies! gone! birthday soon! terrible two’s arriving! oi, my ovaries are aching and need to shut up already because the child bearing years have gone buh-bye. i’m reaching for the different freedom of parenting children instead of babies. so sad. i may as well sit around watching CNN while i wrinkle.

-friday is here and i need to go see the new simpson’s movie. hmmm maybe if i take all my change to coinstar…

-kait! is in labor! everyone send good vibes up north!

I managed to find and misplace my phone again in four minutes.

School Year? I am SO READY FOR YOU. The soon to be second grader has warped into a whiny, bored, LOUD smart-aleck who would be grounded for a week if that didn’t increase the amount of whining and discontent in the house. Everytime I ask him to do something, he whines back, “But I had an ear operation! I can’t! I might hit my ear!” I have created a monster. A loud monster who screams whilst playing the Wii and wakes up the triplets. But it isn’t his fault because his virtual foes make him mad.

In eight days, we are going to Florida. I am nervous, excited and looking forward to the beach. In fact, the soon-to-be-second-grader-if-he-survives-that-long-before-I-ship-him-to-Panama and I regularly sing, “The Beach, The Beach, The Beach, we’re going to the Beach, The Beach, The Beach” which is a singing quote from The Wonder Pets episode where they go to Mexico for a much needed vacation away from saving animals (They still have to make a hermit crab a shell from a coconut during their break and I think they have to save a Mexican Prostitute from a drunk American businessman as well).

After vacation and newly wedded sister celebration, only two more weeks until second grade begins. HALLELUJAH!!!

(no spoilers)

i’m done with harry potter and the deathly hallows. i started at 12:35 am Saturday and finished at 7:45 pm Sunday. during that time, i fed the kids breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, bathed the triplets twice, forced the kid to take a bath, bought some groceries, visited with my parents, drank three pots of coffee and picked up our storm damaged back yard.

i have completed my harry potter journey (sniff, sniff). mike won’t let me utter one word about it as he is now pouring over the book. miss zoot is podcasting her reactions every few chapters if you want to listen in after you’ve read a bit – the way she says horcrux in her southern accent is adorable.

p.s. apparently, the phone was off the hook and i think my cell phone was stolen by house elves again (or is in my car). i am very much alive if you were trying to reach me.

i want to read the entire seventh harry potter book tonight but then it would be over so i’ll pace myself. my nurse’s husband brought two copies of the book for my nurse and i. at 12:35, i had a copy hand delivered to my bedroom for the discount price of $17 from suck-mart.

She got The Beastie Boys in my head so blame her.

My first memory of The Beastie Boys, like so many other people my age, is of “Fight for your Right” when it hit mainstream radio in the mid-eighties. The raucous video was an MTV favorite in those golden days when they still showed videos. New York to the core, these unlikely hip hop stars emulated old school rappers in style and dress. I preferred RUN DMC to and ignored them except when my friend’s older brother picked us up in his IROC and blasted Fight for your Right.

During my Sophomore Year of High School, “Hey Ladies” started playing on MTV and I was smitten. I adored the surrealistic dreaminess of the video, the clever lyrics, thumping bass and the funk/disco samples. I don’t think I bought the album, Paul’s Boutique until years later when it became and continues to be one of my top five albums of all time.

At 16, I fell for skater boys who fancied themselves hard core, straight edge anti-conformists stuck in suburbia. The Beastie Boys’ new “real” image played right into the attitude and I fell hard for Mike D, Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch. I played my Check Yer Head tape until it warped and I had to buy a new one- horrified that I had to go to Streetside Records and buy my favorite music for the second time because I was afraid someone would think I was buying it for the first time. I was no Johnnie Come Lately- I was a devoted fan. Check Yer Head was more punk than funk and started to incorporate more instruments and corporate rebellion. I feel hook, line and sinker and I wasn’t alone.

In college, Ill Communication and In Sounds from Way Out debuted and I devoured them as quickly as their earlier releases. The only one I never embraced was their debut album although I do love Paul Revere and Brass Monkey and will bust them out for you if you catch me after a few drinks on a good night. Listening to the crowd recite Paul Revere word for word at a 1998 show with Tribe Called Quest was awe-inspiring and wicked fun.

Ill Communication brought some of my (and my best friends’) favorite songs – Flute Loop and Eugene’s Lament, both are incredible instrumentals. Paul’s Boutique became my hip-hop Abby Road that I had to listen to whole or drive myself crazy with looping portions floating through my head. I still know that album by heart and is one of the memories my brain would entertain itself with if I were stranded on a desert island.

I have seen The Beastie Boys two or three times in concert and they are currently touring their new instrumental release- The Mix-Up. Sadly, they aren’t coming to my city. I wish I could see their latest shows (formal attire requested for the orchestral event) but it doesn’t seem meant to be. I still get their email updates and fantasize about meeting them one day to say thank you for bringing me so much happiness. Who knows, maybe one of them will stumble upon this inconsequential blog post from a now middle aged fan.

can’t sleep (feel the need to finish that up with “clowns will eat me”. guess i just did).
i am having one of those nights when ideas and tasks keeping bouncing around my skull, echoing “don’t forrrrrrget!”

i have final preparations for bringing four kids on a complicated family adventure halfway across the country sans spouse, plus parents. bringing lily’s medical equipment is a complex issue that needs extensive documentation. we’re also temporarily transferring her services and equipment needs to florida which has required 2.4 billion phone calls and 1.2 thousand forms. i think i have covered my bases (knock on wood) and am crossing my fingers it goes as planned. still need to visit the doctor and get newly dated copies of the prescriptions we need to take on the plane, confirm oxygen in florida, buy oldest something to wear for the wedding, etc. etc. i can’t wait for the wedding to actually happen so we can move out of the planning and into the party phase.

at least i won’t have to worry about my IV pic line. last week, i cut the stitches myself and pulled it out on my own because i’m that hard core. it looked like a tape worm as it came out of my vein but it didn’t hurt and seems to have healed with no problem. i am still taking oral antibiotics and so far, so good. my parents like to say i am a hypochondriac but have they ever pulled out their own looooong IV? no? i’m so tough. or stupid. or both. all i know is the damned thing was itching like a whore with scabies and i was scratching it so much in my sleep that i was afraid it was going to get infected if it didn’t come out. skin isn’t meant to be air-tight bandaged for six weeks. see, i can justify anything.

i really wish i could sleep. maybe it is time to try again.

I am watching Mad vs. Wild in Kimberly (!) Australia. I think Bear Gryllis is physically attractive with an adorable accent but I will never look at him the same now that I’ve seen him drink his own urine and eat a gigantic spider in the span of five minutes. It leads to an interesting internal debate- would I rather drink my own pee or eat a big, pointy spider? I am leaning towards pee. E fucking Gads.

*Post gross out, I watched Drake and Josh on Nickelodeon with my young companion and audibly laughed at least four times. I swear that show is funnier than most “adult” sitcoms.

It is my Floridian sister’s birthday today. Happy Birthday! Here is a picture of her at two months old (ignore the blue line. i don’t know why that is there but my scanner sometimes places blue lines where there were none. it only happens on portraits and i thought it was an anti-copyright feature but this is a 1978 Sears Portrait when scanners were nary the twinkle in some geek’s eye.)

She is going to have a baby girl of her own in a few months so these images of her as a jolly infant have special meaning. Family resemblances run strong on our side so maybe she will look just like this happy baby girl.