Almost older than Labor Day.

John McCain was born in 1936.
Sarah Palin was born in 1964.
Alaska was admitted into the Union in January of 1959.

I won't make you do the math...the lady on channel 5 news said it quite nicely.
"For the record, John McCain is not just older than his running mate, he is older than Alaska."

Critics Agree: We've never been more lucky.

This just in! The blog world has been truly blessed with the most recent addition to your daily blog checklist. Please, everyone, meet the Future President of Africa. Yes, the entire continent. She is venturing out on The College Experience and has chosen to gift the world with a written encapsulation of her new collegiate life.

Her posting may be erratic.
Her friends may be unclean.
Her stories may haunt your dreams.
Who can say?

Check often to find out.


"Truly breathtaking. And I go to school by the ocean. So I know."
-whitney! of Dear Ocean

"Manute Njorge not only has solid, continent-leading fundamentals, but is an exquisite writer. We are so lucky to be graced with her words."
-Sandwich Lady of Think About It

"I've been praying for this day since, well, I learned how to pray."
-That Girl of Don't Stop Believin'

3 Things, 2 Links.

1. Support Wit-Knee's college experience. Read it, love it.
2. Irish cousins! They're young and fabulous and hospitable! I met them at the dedication of a language lab for this woman and exchanged email addresses. Yesssss!
3. Gossip Girl. Never have I so enjoyed feeling terrible about my physical, social and financial positions in life. Well, at least not since that whole OC phase.

Roots. Wings. Waterslides.

Family eccentricities come in all sorts of colors. I know that some families have bright, sunny colors. Not just yellow or red, but maybe canary or candy-apple. They express themselves in bright, shiny ways. Mine just happens to come in an array of olive and pea greens that you can’t decide if it’s vomit-colored or something you’d paint your living room in.
They do things like whisky taste by our heritage, fall asleep during the Mass that honors our grandparents, buy embarrassing matching shirts, and forget each other’s names in less of a misspeaking way and more of a “I really don’t know your name and now have to ask someone what it is” way. My sister and I take to referring to the family as “them” instead of “us” as to clearly draw the line between sane and crazy.
They have an irritating way of mispronouncing words (“antee-pastee” is a salad of cucumbers, olives, feta, and cut meats) that is almost too easy to criticize, and encourage everyone, including my 80 year old grandfather, to participate in whichever form of wrestling they’ve chosen to display in the hotel hallway at 2 am, shortly before making embarrassing phone calls to the lobby about the beer and wine supply running low. But when you have three whole days with these people, even skeptics start to succumb. By Saturday night I was discussing the physics of leg-wrestling with an uncle while my sister dialed the lobby’s extension.
Our family is moving, and we recently re-painted every room in the main floor of the house some of brown. You might call one room shit, another butt hole and one more dust. But we call them bark, linen and latte.

Didn't pass Swimming I at age 5, bringing books.

Life post-car accident is pretty much the same as life pre-car accident except that I could pick out a Rav4 or Malibu anywhere in 5 miles of traffic.
So I'm packing* my swimsuit, a book, a camera, and a series on DVD to spend the weekend at Wisconsin Dells with my mother's side of the family. We have a block of rooms, water slides, lazy rivers and copious amounts of children under four feet tall.
Hopefully none will be lost or left behind like in Home Alone II (the obviously superior film). Although this group of kids would definitely pick to be left in a water park over Manhattan. I will not be making head counts because I am the youngest of my set and that is Sister's job.
And I have nerdy TV to watch.

*Note that I am not packing my iPod because the buddy is sick. Sick with a dead hard drive...exactly one month over the year warranty. Mac geniuses make me feel stupid when they push a button to fix my technical issues, and make me cry when they can't.

Probably not what you had in mind either.

So The Future President of Africa joined in on the Muffin Family Fun this weekend. And as part of the fun, the two of us went to go see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 on Saturday. On our way to the movie, we took out a car full of nuns. I wish we were making a funny (wouldn't it be a good one, though? too soon?) but we have the bruises to prove it.
And, well, this lovely little snapshot up here (Don't worry, Blum, I edited it! (Sort of.)).

On family, funerals.

A nugget from the middle of our status meeting this morning.  I will protect the non-innocent here, but she has voluminous, curly hair an innate sense of fashion.  I'm just saying. 

Me: Is Maria gone today?

Not Me: Yeah, I just noticed that.  I heard her uncle died.

Me: Oh wow.  Sad.

Not Me: Yeah.  And by "heard" I mean, "read over her shoulder in an email".

Headed to the cabin with the family this weekend...first family event since...my birth? 

If we all survive, there may be pictures.  Otherwise I will post after the funeral(s).