Back in just a minute!

We are taking the Independence Kids on vacation. I will try to post on the road but if I don't get around to it, remember that NO news is GOOD news! In the mean time, I would like to share my favorite post of the week from one of my good friends blogs. This is from the ever so beautiful and powerful Raquel. Enjoy!

gone baby gone

my bag was stolen. at 3:30 today from pioneer park.

i'm placing a hex on whoever stole it! my bag will be like hot lava on their sticky fingers.

meanwhile...it means my cell phone is probably in a dumpster somewhere. with everyones' numbers on it.

now that my debit card is cancelled i'm starting to think about what i really need.

i really need the following to BE RETURNED:
my mother-in-law's digital camera, my vinylicious wallet, my nissan thermos, my Farmers Market book, and my laptop cord.

and my cell phone.

did i mention my mother-in-law's camera? urgh.

uhh...someone is calling my work number from my stolen cell phone.

*****
k, dear reader, 30 seconds after i put the lava curse on my bag someone called to return it!

i am so witchy i can't believe it. =)

i ran down the street and met the nice man and woman in front of city limits bar. they were living out of a grocery cart full of random essentials. the top of their cart had a layer of well tended plants. the couple had a portable container garden! i hugged and thanked them for being so wonderful to track me down. and then i start crying because i couldn't give them any money when i checked my empty wallet.

when i cry it's an event. spectators want the blotchy-faced lady to feel better NOW.
homeless people want ME to feel better. NOW.

and this is why being a cursing, hex-placing, crying lady...works. the squeaky wheel gets oiled (and patted on the back.)

now what i NEED is...
for that homeless couple to have my stolen cash after all. and to spend it on cool stuff that isn't a meth addiction.

The Night was Legend

All right, here they are. Plenty of blackmail material in this post. (Don't hate me, Emily!) Judy, this is my official Legend picture above but the best shot of the day was ...

Cindy Cyrus!!! I love it.

Hello, Whitney!

The sexiest legend was Foxy Blond, a.k.a. Emily. There were more pictures of Emily but I won't post them here. I really like her and I would hate it if suddenly she felt like she needed to burn down my house. (But if you email me privately, I will send you the secret link.) 

The evening was not with out it's 80's moments. Here is my Pat Benitar shot. Yeah, you're a heart breaker.

 

And here is Emily as our pimp. 

We all said how surprised we were that, in the close to 14 years we have been friends, we have never done glamour shots before. Think, ladies, all those beautiful "twenty-something" years when we didn't even need any photoshop. We will just have to make up for it and get together with everyone for our official thirty-something shoot. (Some of use are much more thirty-something than others.)

Thank you, everyone. (Especially thank you to Whitney!) Click HERE for Cindy's take on the evening.

Deceptively Delicious

That's it! No more 5 Buck pizza for my kids. Shauna gave me Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld the other day. While I have dabbled in smuggling extra veggies into my kid's food, I hadn't fully thrown myself into the business of puree ... until now. 

Last night it was brown rice chicken balls with hidden yam, broccoli and milled flax seed. Tonight it was whole wheat noodles with squash, carrot, zucchini sauce and locally grown lamb meatballs. All day I day dream of spirarilla Popsicles and chocolate beet cake. How about cauliflower fluffy eggs with extra egg whites and yogurt. And do you know what -- he actually EATS it ALL. Yes, I have one of those kind of picky eaters. (Not Zina -- she'll eat anything.)

So, today I run home from hiking Rock Canyon full of purpose, full of energy and full of commitment. I'm just in time to whip up some tofu-beet-rutabaga-blueberry dino-nuggets with carrot-eye-of-newt ketchup before the kids get home from school. As Marco walks kitchen I fill him in on today's lunch menu. 

Him: Oh, don't worry about lunch. On the way home we got burgers. 

Me: What? Oh well, I guess burgers are protein. At least you didn't go to McDonalds. (I long ago told the kids that we don't go to McDonald's because they are mean to the cows before they kill them.)

Him: (Really guilty look.)

Me: (Medium to large tantrum.)

Him: But I had a coupon!

Me: That's no coupon, it's SATAN beguiling you into poisoning our children!

Him: Drama Queen.

Me: Well, you are a tofo-beet-rutabaga-dino-nugget-with carrot-eye-of-newt-ketchup hater!

(Tonight I pureed an extra eye-of-newt into his pasta sauce at dinner. Take that, Ronald McDonald.)

What REALLY Becomes a Legend Most

This is part one of my story of legends -- here's a little background. Judy stopped by last week and was ever so kind to drop off a the "What Becomes A Legend Most" book. This is a famous ad campaign from the 70's and 80's for a mink coat company called Blackglama. I told her I had my grandmother's mink coat left over from Katie's wedding and she started to pull out her point and shoot camera for a for a picture of me in the coat for her Blackglama collection.

Of course I wasn't going to let her just get a snapshot when there was Natalie Wood, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson and Audrey to compete with! This would require some planning and LOTS of peer pressure. Not to mention I have been bugging Cindy to have Whitney take a Miley Cyrus-esque picture.

So, armed with Judy's book, a mink coat and a couple of girlfriends (Cindy and Emily), we headed on over to Whitney's for a great night of girlishness. Let's just say Whitney's husband, John, was too afraid to come down stairs while we were "working" and opted to use his cell phone for all necessary communications through out the evening.

It was more fun than I even imagined it would be. Whitney is still working on the pictures so you will have to wait for the final results. In the meantime, here is an introduction to something that fascinated me as a child. It took a long time for me to clue into the play on words of what "becomes" a legend most.


I hope to post some of our pictures in a few days. Don't expect Audry, but it will still be good! Thanks to Judy for the book. Thanks to Whitney (especially Whitney), Cindy and Emily for the crazy fun and Grandma Zina for the mink. We are all legends.

Marco is in Hawaii

Marco is finishing up his week in Hawaii with Betty Jo (his mom!) visiting Becca and Matt on the occasion of Rosie Jo's first birthday luau. He promises lots of pictures and at least on sea shell. Here are a couple of teasers until he comes home.

Here in Utah the real news is my sick computer. Who knew my Mac was so vulnerable to virus infiltration? This week will be a spent at the computer hospital which means my blogging will feeble, at best. 

Quick updates: Xanny has mastered his huge two wheel bike and is a force of nature. Each incremental increase in speed is a gateway to Nirvana for this kid. He also has a new nick name. I call him "Rooster-Kid" because he is fond of rising with the dawn, which is a little rough when his "Rooster-Dad" is out of town for two weeks. 

Zina has a new game. She plays little-red-riding-hood with a light saber and kicks the wolf's trash. I have to pretend to be her frightened baby while she "be-techs" (protects) me. And I quote, "Don't worry, little baby Andi, that is just the blood splattering on your nose from when I cut that bad wolf's head off with my pink light saber!" Who's going to interpret that one for me? My other favorite is her habit of telling me not to sing in the car because my singing gives her a sick tummy. Thanks, kid.

As for me ... I am constantly trying to feed my children a steady stream of protein to keep them from freaking out and exploding all over someone. That and my kitchen sink is clogged. Happy Mother's Day!

5 Buck Pizza

Me: OK, kids, you guys get 5 Buck Pizza and I am going to have wanton soup for lunch.

Xan: Why aren't you eating 5 Buck Pizza, mom?

Me: Because 5 Buck Pizza makes my bum really big and I want to have a little bum.

Xan: Oh -- that's too bad.

Me: It's alright, I really like wanton soup.

Xan: It's not too bad for you, it's too bad for me. I really like big bums!

(I have to say, this little conversation made my day!)

Now For Something Completely Different.

A wedding ring ...

an old kitchen table ...

and a baby in a basket.

What in the world could these three things have in common? I'll tell you. I was talking to my sister, Marcia, in Jersey the other day and she confided in me that she has a secret obsession. When ever she is out driving around, she is always on the look out for abandoned babies in a baskets. What? She says there is no particular reason why she thinks she might find a baby in a basket, no secret past or psychic connection -- she is just always on the lookout.

Well, this made me have to confess MY secret obsession. When ever I am out driving around, I am always on the look out for beautiful abandoned kitchen tables. Don't ask me why. It is just a visceral feeling I have that I might one day find the perfect antique kitchen table by the side of the road on trash day.

But there are THREE Pitcher sisters ... It just so happens that my older sister, Shauna, secretly searches the side of the road for lost wedding rings. Personally, I think of the three, I stand the greatest chance of all of actually finding my hidden treasure. Kitchen tables are way bigger than wedding rings. Wedding rings, however, are worth much more than a kitchen table so that makes Shauna's quest better than mine. Marcia, of course, wins with her abandoned baby thing. Just think of the talk she could write for sacrament meeting if she actually finds one. She always wins. (But I'm not bitter.)

After having this conversation I have found that my subconscious is going for the jackpot. Today I missed a turn because I was searching the alley for -- you got it -- a baby in a basket hidden under an antique kitchen table who's wearing its lost mother's wedding ring.

What do you secretly look for when you are out driving around? (Or is this just a Pitcher sister thing?)

What Becomes a Legend Most?

I know, I know ... Our society is going down the toilet and Miss Miley is just the next teenage queen of scank. Or is she? Above is an image of Elizabeth Taylor in 1948. The s-e-x-k-i-t-t-e-n had just turned 16. Below is our Miss Cyrus. Obviously she is headed down that same sad road as poor Elizabeth Taylor. OK - 15 is not 16.

Here she is at 15 just after National Velvet with the same amount of fabric covering her bodice.

My point (don't hate me!) -- IT'S ANNIE *%$@# LEIBOVITZ, people. What becomes a legend most? My sisters are going to kill me but I don't think the portrait is that scandalous. I think Annie Leibovitz always wins and takes beautiful pictures. Sorry. Miley might be worth a billion dollars but Annie is an artist.

And do you really think Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus sent the photos back to Vanity Fair? I think not. Conveniently, they got to go to the photo shoot and be outraged at a later date when someone whispered in their ear that they should cry SHAME ON YOU, ANNIE. I wish all of life's moral decisions were a revolving door having it both ways.

Maybe all of this "End of the Miley World" will bode well for us in Utah County. Maybe now we will be able to get a ticket to the Stadium of Fire on July 4th.


By the way, this 1949 portrait of Ms. Taylor at age 17 is titled "S-E-X Education". Now, those were the days.

Discuss amongst yourselves.