Andy Summers never smiled once

Dear Raquel--

I am writing something to you that will never ever be admitted again. I should have taken you to Vegas with me. Bart was a very good sport and all but he was strictly there because I made him. That is not a good concert going companion. Raq, he sat down during the concert. Need I say more. Really.

We were very lucky actually. Remember that I had purchased tickets that were not next to one another. We had been plotting all day on how to sit next to one another. We got there early and had dinner at the MGM just to make sure that nothing went awry and we missed something. We found Bart's seat and then went back out to get very over priced liquid refreshments only to find a single man sitting next to Bart's chair when we got back. Not daring to hope we asked him if he was a single. Stephen Block was a single. And he was more than willing to trade me my better ticket. How lucky is that?!?!? Bart was positively estatic. He really was. I think he was dreading sitting there all alone. Again I will emphasize that I have given him points for being a very good sport and going with me however, I wanted a screaming partner. A singing partner. A dancing partner.

Sting's son was the opening act. After my reading up on Sting for this concert I am ashamed to surmise that the only reason that he got back together with the Police is to promote his son. He has been quoted as saying that he would only be with The Police as long as it was working for him. I can't imagine that he needs money and so I think that this was a very expensive and very lavish sounding board for his son's band Fictionplane. They were pretty good. It was a three person band that seemed to be following CLOSELY in the footsteps of the young Police band. Sting's son, of course, was the lead singer. I told Bart I was sure that he took his mid 80's parachute pants off after his performance so that Sting could wear them back on stage.

Fictionplane's last song was a two liner about a girl and her cigarettes. "F... you and F... your cigarettes." was the lyrics I heard for about 3 minutes and all I could think of was that his father was standing behind the stage somewhere listening to this song. Was Sting proud? Was he abashed? Was he trying to play it cool? I don't know.

The Police played about 25 songs and had 4 encores. I was so disappointed in people's concert ediquette. Please. Please. Please. If the lights do not go on in the venue, the performers are coming out on stage again. It has to be a universal rule of thumb. I mean, Sting is British and he worked it. I just shook my head at the many Las Vegians who were making their way down the aisles before it was finished. Raq, please keep this a secret but Bart started to leave after the third encore as well. I was so embarrassed.

Even with all that, I did what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing "So Lonely" with Sting. And I did. I wanted to sing "Next to You" with the Police. And I did. I wanted to yell out the words to "Walking on the Moon" along with 16,000 other adoring fans. And I did. It was fantastic! And even though he never ever cracked a smile, I think Andy Summers had a good time as well.

I promise when Ric Ocasik and The Cars come to town, Raquel, I choose you to be my concert partner. Pinkie swear.
Kim

Questions

How do one get a child to just know he or she has to practice piano for 20 minutes every day? Why does one have to endure the tortured looks and the whining that comes on when one reminds them of their duty that was their's for the last 6 months of their life? How does one make a child understand that 20 minutes is very literally 1/42 or less of their summer day?

I know there may not be answers to these questions, but there for sure is a separate line for mothers of children that played piano to get into the pearly gates. It has a mentally handicapped sign above it and they wheelchair you in with deserved special treatment.

The Ultimate Green Thumb Question...for this Blog at Least

Can you name the following plants growing in my garden?

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All Hail the Champions

Note the bald head.

The boys went undefeated this season. And they won all their games by like 10 goals. It was really quite fun to watch.

The front player is Michael and Chase is behind him. They have been inseparable for so long. Chase finally made some new school friends this year that didn't involve Michael but their bond is not any less for it. For those that have seen the movie Sahara, Michael is the tall, dark, quiet McConaughey and Chase is the shorter, chatty kathy Steve Zahn. The girls are all in love with Michael but they love Chase.

It may be contagious

Chase has had a rough week. First we took him to get his haircut and the lady misunderstood my directions and pretty much shaved him bald. I was over on the other side of the store explaining what to do with Cooper so I didn't see it until it was halfway done. I could tell Chase was trying not to cry but what could I do. At that point the lady had shaved the top of his head and he had very large bush around the tops of his ears. Rogaine would have liked to contract him for commercials.
Fortunately for Chase, he is a very handsome boy. Hair or no hair.

Unfortunately, hair is large part of the way you see yourself and apparently Chase thinks of himself as a handsome boy with hair.

He cried for 3 hours. "I will not go to school. I will not go to church. I will not go to Lacrosse." We finally made him come to dinner with us as we were going with Grandpa Chuck but he wore a hat the whole time. And he was not very happy.

That was last weekend. He then entered into the last week of school. With a hat on. Saying good-bye to a favorite teacher is a hard thing. Chase loves Ms. Payne.......to death. He still talks about her crying every day since the last day of school. I think it was a very emotional milestone for him simply moving on from seeing Ms. Payne every day of his little life. Not to mention that he graduated from 6th grade and elementary school. Tuesday night I got a call from Ms. Payne saying that Chase was to receive an award at the end of school assembly on Wednesday and I was invited. Glad she thought to invite me. But Chase was awarded the Leadership Award for the 6th grade boys. He didn't cry about the award but I got a little choked up. I know that these awards mean nothing in life. People can make 180 degree turns at any time of their life. Going from having a hard time in school to becoming a contributing participant in society or just as easily going the other way. But I just liked to see that he could stand in front of a crowd and not pick his nose or scratch his balls. I just liked that I actually liked my son and I was proud of him. I just liked that he was enjoying his life and soaking up experiences.

Unfortunately he knows about the next experience of his life at the charter school and he may not like me for very much longer. Now that he is officially going to Jr. High he has been pestering me every day to find out what school he is headed for. Tuesday I received my first call from one of the charter schools that I had signed them up for. Ryan and Chase were officially invited to register for the 2007-2008 school year. Was I still interested? You bet your bottom dollar I was. When I told Chase, the tears were immediate. And long lasting.

Fortunately I was able to take him and his two friends to the school on Thursday to pick up registration papers. I say fortunately because he was able to no longer imagine the worst. He would be at least aware of the truth of the matter. And yes, I was so pleased for that moment of pride when he graduated from 6th grade because the was he interacted with the school counselor and the principal was humiliating. "I'm not going to this school. I'm not going to this school. I'm not going to this school." He just kept on saying. He wouldn't barely acknowledge their questions and I had to just sit and take it all in as the mother of this child who was living through the most emotional week of his life......so far.

But today he is all better out playing with his friends. Free for the summer. And I am the one feeling blue. And I wonder if it just really is contagious.

Oh, what to do?

This past weekend my laptop
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Two hundred dollars later it is working again but there is no record of any files that had been on it before this weekend. A very powerful argument for journal blogging. Lately I have been wondering if I need to print off every year my posts and bind them into a physical journal. That could be given to somebody or put away for safe keeping. Pessimistically speaking, I don't think that computer access will be what we worried about at some point in our future. That is why we are making our kids help plant and care for the garden as well as dabble in My Space and other computer hobbies this summer. I don't know if that feeling just comes from my innate feeling of wanting to possess something. I just don't feel right if I don't have MY copy of a book I love sitting on MY shelf in MY house. I understand that is a "Kim" feeling so I am not sure if reproducing a paper version of my blog is catering to that or if people really do it.

And don't even say a word about the lack of posts this year or how small the book will be this year and you won't be able to read it without a microscope. Ha. Ha.

A Reward for Your Comments

I haven't posted in ages and I post one day and voila! I have comments. Comments most definately need to be rewarded. At least with another post.

My 54 day diet was the clincher apparently. Or just everybody knew that I definately needed to lose some poundage. Which I did........Which I do. Like I said in a previous post, most of my poundage stays out of sight out of mind on my backside and so I am able to continue my consistent phase of denial. However, as I started trying on summer clothes that I wanted to wear during the upcoming Vegas trip it was evident that the fat was starting to migrate forward.

So, I started out with a cleansing 3 day protein diet with Krissy. (Like her little ass needs any dieting, ha!) www.jayrobb.com for more information.
And then I just started paring down my foods to the following:

bananas

Costco weight loss shakes

hard boiled eggs

yogurt

tuna with mayonaise and pickles

chicken and spinach salad

Crystal Lite single servings

carrots, cauliflower and broccoli

These are the things that I consistently eat every day. Yes, I do go out to eat occasionally (especially with all the Jazz games going on) and I try to eat very little bread. I know. It is hard. And I fail while I am at restaurants but I just go right back to the diet the next day. I bring three things to work everyday so I have something to eat if I have to have something extra. I try to eat just two things before 2 pm and then of course, drink water. After the first week, my stomach had shrunk enough that I don't really crave anything for hunger. I still crave for boredom for sure. That is where the crystal lite single servings come in. I love them. They are my treat.

Now looking back on what I used to eat I realize how much piecing I did. How much I ate for boredom. And how much I ate for social outings. We are going out much less right now---like tonight. We are not going to go out ......to eat because we are trying to lose weight. Bart and Chase ran the 3 mile FUN RUN at the school this morning so he does not want to go to the track wth me tonight. So I have to find something else fun to do for us AFTER we water the garden. I have not actively looked for a karaoke bar here in Salt Lake but nobody knows of any good ones. We currently don't have a patio to sit on and relax as we excavated it two weeks ago. The Jazz finally lost out to the San Antonio Spurs for the West Conference Finals. It is still too cold to go water skiing and I don't want to go fishing so here we sit. And we just rewatched the Underworld series the last couple of weeks. So please, please, help out with any suggestions you might have.

And if you do give me suggestions, I just might have to post again tomorrow. :)