Something Funny out of Somethine Serious...

I read this article today that was linked off of the Ladies Against Feminism website. I know it's meant as a totally serious article about how the man taking his wife's name upon marriage is showing how feminism is leaking into every aspect of life, but being the goof I am, found something kinda funny about it. I even highlighted what I thought was funny:

USA Today— As Donna and Mike entered their wedding reception, an unwitting announcer told the expectant crowd, “Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together for the new Mr. and Mrs. Salinger!”

The Salingers broke a patriarchal tradition so ingrained in American society that many women’s studies researchers have yet to study it.

That may be coming. The California Legislature is set to consider a bill this month that would allow men to change their surnames upon marriage as seamlessly as women now can. Only seven states now allow a man who wishes to alter his name after his wedding to do so without going through the laborious, frequently expensive legal process set out by the courts for any name change. Women don’t have to do so.

The bill is co-sponsored by the ACLU of California as a follow-up to a federal lawsuit the civil rights group filed in December on behalf of Michael Buday, a Los Angeles man who wants to take on his wife’s surname, Bijon, to show his affinity for his father-in-law. He accuses the state of gender discrimination for forcing him into the more complex process.

“We have the perfect marriage application for the 17th century,” says ACLU attorney Mark Rosenbaum, who is litigating the case. Buday did not respond to requests for an interview. “Every place Michael went, he had the door shut in his face or he was ridiculed.”

Mike Salinger, who said it cost him about $350 to change his name legally, concedes he changed his name “because I’m a big ole granola liberal and I wanted to tweak the tradition while showing my wife I love her.”

OK, if my name sounded pretty close to a French plumbing fixture, I would want to change my name too.

This is why I'm not allowed in serious discussions. I will always find something funny in any situation.

Friday's Feast

I just discovered a new (well, new to me) Web Meme that I really enjoy so now I will be doing this on a weekly basis! I need some way to keep your interest in this thing!

Appetizer
What are you proud of?
~Both my husband and myself. We are working towards being debt free and we've both prayerfully decided to cut back our spending drastically so that we can pay our debt off faster. It's not easy seeing that we have major Stuff-itis

Soup
What is the best thing you’ve ever won as a prize?
~The only thing I have ever one was a bouquet of birthday flowers from a local radio station because my mom called in to wish me a happy 18th birthday. So by default, it's the best!

Salad
Name something you do that is a waste of time.
~I really, really enjoy the Sims2 computer games. I have found myself wasting an entire Saturday away because I lost track of time. That's happened only a couple of times, but since I know now how much it sucks me in, I time myself. But it's a very fun game and I love my little families. It's like a doll house for grown ups.

Main Course
In what year of your life did you change the most?
~Probably in 2002. That's when I got married and realized that it was time to grow up and become responsible. I've got the responsible thing down, it's the growing up that's hard to do.

Dessert
Where is a place you consider to be very tranquil?
~The mountains. I could spend all day in Big Bear if I could.

Just You Wait...

I have to find something amusing in my job or else I'll go crazy. For those that don't know I am a receptionist for a civil engineering firm where I live. My main job to to answer the phones and get jobs prepared for our field crew.

Well, today I answer the phone and this gentleman is calling asking about getting a survey done on his property. I give him the information and since he wants to go ahead with it, I get his personal information so I can prepare his proposal and file. I was ready with my pen when he gave me his name:

Henry Higgins

I couldn't make this up if I tried. I had a hard time concentrating after that because all I could do to keep from singing:

Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be to late!
You'll be broke, and I'll have money;
Will I help you? Don't be funny!
Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, till you're sick,
And you scream to fetch a doctor double-quick.
I'll be off a second later And go straight to the the-ater!
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
Ooooooh 'enry 'iggins!
Just you wait until we're swimmin' in the sea!
Ooooooh 'enry 'iggins!
And you get a cramp a little ways from me!
When you yell you're going to drown I'll get dressed
and go to town! Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins!
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins! Just you wait!
One day I'll be famous! I'll be proper and prim;
Go to St. James so often I will call it St. Jim!
One evening the king will say:
"Oh, Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing.
Next week on the twentieth of May
I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day!
All the people will celebrate the glory of you
And whatever you wish and want I gladly will do."
"Thanks a lot, King" says I, in a manner well-bred;
But all I want is 'enry 'iggins 'ead!"
"Done," says the King with a stroke.
"Guard, run and bring in the bloke!"
Then they'll march you, 'enry 'iggins to the wall;
And the King will tell me: "Liza, sound the call."
As they lift their rifles higher, I'll shout:
"Ready! Aim! Fire!"
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins,
Down you'll go, 'enry 'iggins!
Just you wait!

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I Love About Disneyland

1. It's the happiest place on Earth!
~There is never a time when I was upset while I was there. No matter how big the crowds are, I always have a smile on my face.

2. The food
~ When we want a nice dinner, we will make reservations at the Blue Bayou. They have the best prime rib and cheesy potatoes ever! If we want to grab a quick bite, we either head over to Condor Flats in DCA and grab a blue cheese burger (really good!) or go to Tomorrow Land and grab a jumbo slice of pizza at the Pizza Port. Also, For dessert, we aways go to the Gibson Girl and grab a waffle cone with Mocha Almond ice cream.

3. The Haunted Mansion

" When hinges creak in doorless chambers and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls, whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still, that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight."

~It's my most favorite ride ever. I don't know what it is about it, but I love it. I love how it looks on the outside, simply because I'm a huge fan of the antebellum styled mansions. I also love the fact that when it was made back in 1969, it was the most technologically advanced ride ever made. Even though it's "haunted" I'd still love to live there. I also know the whole elevator shpeel by heart. Eric makes fun of me for that. Although The Nightmare Before Christmas is an excellent movie, the only time I don't like the mansion is during Halloween/Christmas time when they revamp it for the movie.

4. The Atmosphere
~ Since I am nostalgic, I love walking down Main Street U.S.A. and imagining I lived back at turn of the century and living in a little town just like it. The music that plays is so fun and just the smell alone takes me back in time to when I was a little girl. I love Main Street at Christmas time when it's all decked out and the Dickens Carolers are out in the period costumes singing Christmas carols.

5. The 50th Anniversary Fireworks show
~ When I have the chance, I will have to post a link to a video someone took of it. When the 50th was over, I was wondering what they would do with the amazing fireworks show, but thankfully, they just had Julie Andrews re-record some new words and they made it fit. It really is the BEST fireworks show I have ever seen. The first time I saw it, I actually teared up a little bit because it was so beautiful. I hope they never change it, or if they do, make an even better one.

6. New Orleans Square.
~ It is probably one of the most prettiest areas of Disneyland. You get the feel of being in the French Quarter without the worries of your wallet being stolen. There are tiny little garden areas tucked in the corners of the square and they always have some jazz musician playing on the streets. That is also where the Blue Bayou restaurant is. There are many times we will just hang out there because it's so cool. Just watch out for pirates.

7. The Plaza Inn
~ Where else can you have breakfast with Eeyore and all of his Hundred Acre Wood friends?
We went there for breakfast on our honeymoon and Eeyore pushed Eric out of his seat so he could sit next to me. Being a HUGE Eeyore fan, I loved it! They also have great waffles.

8. The Shows
~ This is a plug for the "family business". My cousins are producers (or something like that) for Disneyland and they have produced many of the stage shows at the park. My all time favorite was Beauty and the Beast followed closely by Aladdin. It's like you are at a miniature Broadway play.

9. The service
~ All the cast members at Disneyland are very friendly and helpful. They are never rude (that I have experienced) and really help you to make your day more enjoyable.

10. The Electrical Parade (which sadly is no longer, but I still love it anyway)

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular pagaent of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electrosynthomagnetic musical sounds. The Main Street Electrical Parade!"

~I can't describe how cool that parade was. The music (Baroque Hoedown) gets stuck in your head, but it's still cool. I think I love that parade the most because my cousin, his wife and his best friend were all a part of it and they did something special for us when they saw us (except for Lisa because the Blue Fairy was huge!). Tom and Lisa drove the floats (Lisa was the Blue Fairy) and Tom was a turtle (he would always drive close to us when we were there)Keith was Prince John from Robin Hood and he would always wave at me! There has been no other parade like it. The new one frankly stinks.

11. Fantasmic
~If I recall correctly, this was my cousin Mike's first show. It's a show about Micky's dreams and they show clips of Disney movies on GIANT screens made of water. It's awesome. I also know the soundtrack to this by heart and even though we may not see it every time we are there, I can tell what part it's on just by hearing the music in the background.

12. Billy Hill and the Hillbillies
~ This is a show in Frontier Land with 4 brothers named Billy Hill. They play bluegrass music and put on a very, very funny show. We try to see them every time we are there. We leave with our stomachs hurting because they crack us up.

13. The Memories
~ Since I have gone there many, many times in my life, I have built up so many wonderful memories that I love to re-live while I'm there. As much as I love the park itself, I will always cherish the memories that were made.

I'm Watching You!

I just added a Site Meter to my blog. Now I can know how many people see my blog a day. This will make me one of two things:

1) Excited to know that people actually read this thing

~OR~

2) Depressed because now I know that no one really reads this thing.

OK, I won't really be depressed, but now that I'm tracking, I ask, no, DEMAND that you leave me a comment or something to let me know that you were here.

OK, I'm not demanding, but it would be nice to know who visits me.

So I changed it back

Yeah, I changed my look back to the original. When I used a non-blogger template, I lost a bunch of my settings that I relied on, so I changed it again. I miss my pink flowers, but I need my settings!

My new look!

I must be doing pretty well with this blogger thing because I've now figured out how to have a new, non pre-made blogger template. So how do you like it? I thought it fit in perfectly with spring.

Now I just have to re-do my link page.

Disneyland Pictures!

My favorite ride, The Haunted Mansion. I've always wanted to live here!


Me, Maggie and Katie in front of my Mansion.


Eric caught us in action on the Tea cups. He said we were the fastest cup out there!


Us being silly after the ride was over

Maggie being a goof!

We're sad that the Matterhorn broke down

Eric and I laying in the middle of Main Street USA, waiting for the fireworks.

Catching Up

Well, you hear nothing from me for a couple weeks, and here I am posting twice in one day! I thought I would also catch up on our lives in these past couple weeks. It's nothing too important, but I'm bored.

The weekend before last, Eric and I went down to Orange County to stay with my cousin's kids while Tom and Lisa were gallivanting in Las Vegas. Every year, my brother and a bunch of people go to Vegas to go to the NASCAR race. The girls go shopping and hang out while the guys go to the race. Since Eric and I are usually broke, we don't go and we stay home, but this year, Tom and Lisa asked us to watch Katie and Maggie for them while they were gone. We said yes, so we packed up for the weekend and stayed with the girls for three days. It's really not baby sitting since they aren't babies (they are 11 and 13) and they can pretty much take care of themselves. We were there to make sure they didn't burn the house down and we were able to spend some time doing fun things like playing Dance Dance Revolution (I am awful at that game) and we went to my most favorite place in the whole wide world, Disneyland!!! Those of you that don't know me, have no clue of my love the the land of Mickey Mouse. It's all pretty much the fault of said cousins, Tom and his wife Lisa.

Tom and his brother Mike have worked at Disneyland since they were 16. I believe they started out as parade people (One of them was one of the three little pigs, if I remember correctly.) Since they both worked for Disneyland, my parents got us season passes (that's when it was cheap to go) and we would go all. the. time. I was practically raised there. My cousins would tell their friends that I was going to be at the park (I was about 4 or 5 at the time) and their friends would pay special attention to me. I really thought Disneyland was MINE! As Tom and Mike got older, they were able to sign people into the park for free. Tom also got married to Lisa (who also worked at Disneyland) and our many trips to the happiest place on Earth continued. So many of my BEST memories are at Disneyland and I feel like a kid again when I'm there. In fact, Eric and I spent our honeymoon there because I love it THAT much. Now Eric and I have season passes and we try to go as often as possible. It's not nearly enough for this Disney freak, but it's good enough.

Lisa was able to get free passes for the girls to go to Disneyland on Saturday and Eric and I used our season passes and we set off to the park. It wasn't too awfully crowded (it's been worse!) and we spent the day going on rides, eating and watching the amazing fireworks display (seriously, the latest edition of the fireworks are the BEST Disneyland fireworks ever) We all had a blast. It's so amazing to see both my little cousins be so grown up. I remember when they were born and here they are now, so grown up and really fun to hang out with. They are both smart young women. I look forward to seeing the women they become.

Sunday both the girls had something going on with their church so Eric and I ran some errands while the girls were out. That evening we played had dinner and played Mexican Train before the girls went to bed. The next day Tom and Lisa came home and Eric and I left to go back to our own place. We had a great weekend and enjoyed spending time with Katie and Maggie.

When we got home, I went to unload the dishwasher and noticed the dishes were still dirty. I also noticed that the dishwasher didn't drain and there was water left in the bottom of the dishwasher (thank the Lord that it didn't leak into the kitchen!). Eric inspected it and thought there was just a clog. I freaked out because I couldn't live without my dishwasher (yes, I'm spoiled and I like it that way!)

The next day, one of our co-workers came over to look at it and realized a motor had been burned out. We needed a new dishwasher. I was sitting on the couch as this was all happening because I wasn't feeling so hot. Eric came over to me to tell me the news of the dishwasher. We had some money set aside for a new water heater and I told Eric I would rather take a cold shower than do dishes by hand (I REALLY hate doing the dishes). We don't really need a water heater at this moment so Eric agreed and he set about doing his research for the new dishwasher. Meanwhile, I went to bed because I thought I was going to pass out.

Wednesday I stayed home from work because I was so sick. I thought I was going to cough my lungs up. Eric came home and told me that our co-worker could get us a great deal on a new Kenmore dishwasher. I said great, let's buy it! So by Friday we had our new dishwasher. I was very happy. Eric spent a good part of the day on Saturday hooking it up and by that night, I was able to catch up on the three loads that were waiting for it (pathetic, I know).

So that's about it for us. Nothing too exciting but it's been enough to keep us busy. This weekend we are going to our church's couple's retreat and I am really looking forward to it.

Pictures!

Here are a few of the pictures from our trip...


All the cousins with the boys (Eric's nephews Evan and Adam)


The Family (Lori, Dad, Gina, Eric and Your's Truly)

Snow!

The Front of our lovely accommodations for part of the trip!


The back of said lovely accommodations.

Group photo at Whities!


What a cute couple!

Partaking of the delicious Ted Drews. I had to be bundled up so I wouldn't freeze!

The Last St. Louis Post!

Wow, how long has it been since I last updated? I didn't forget about the blog, it's just been crazy lately and I never had the chance to update. At least this time I have pictures! I also have a small video, but I'm not sure how to upload those. If I can figure it out, I will post it.

So, when I last left you, I was freezing my patootie off at Art Hill. The next day was Valentines Day and we just hung low and relaxed. Eric made his famous French toast for breakfast (or was it an early lunch?) and the guys ran a quick errand to Dad's to drop off the car, while Gabby and I just hung out at home. That night we had reservations at White Castle (yes, I said White Castle) for a romantic Valentines dinner and it was decided that we would walk to our destination. You would think that since I froze the night before that I would have stood up and changed the decision to drive, but alas, I was up for an adventure and said "yes" to walking a mile and a half (I think) to White Castle. When we first started walking, I about changed my mind. It was still freezing and I was afraid of slipping and falling on my rear, but after I warmed up and I figured out how to walk in snow and ice it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was an enjoyable experience! I really enjoyed walking through the city and seeing the beautiful brick houses up close.

When we reached our destination, the lovely hostess at White Castle seated us at our table. For those of you who don't know, it's quite the experience. The section off an area of the joint and decorate with Valentines decorations and set the tables with red plastic table clothes and candles. There was also a lovely plate of pretzels to munch on while we were waiting to have our order taken. We ordered a bunch of burgers and some of their sides and had a good time visiting. I don't think I will ever forget it!

After our dinner we walked back home and warmed up before making the trip over to Ted Drews for some delicious frozen (yes, frozen) custard. Who doesn't enjoy eating frozen custard when it's 15 degrees outside? Any time Eric and I go to St. Louis, a trip to Ted Drews is a MUST. They have the best frozen custard. We then spent the last night of our trip visiting some more with Brian and Gabby, wishing we didn't have to go home the next day.

Sadly, Thursday came too fast and we got busy packing up to leave. We had lunch at http://www.crowncandykitchen.com/ which is a cool restaurant that was built in 1913! They have excellent food and delicious malts! After lunch, we were dropped off at the airport and be bit a sad farewell to our best friends and were on our way home.

Our trip was too short, as usual, but we had a blast. We are already looking forward to the next trip, whenever that is.

Crazy Times

I usually blog when I'm bored at work, however, I've been so busy I really haven't had the time lately to do so. I'm almost caught up, so by tomorrow I should be able to finish my St. Louis trip info and hopefully, by the end of the week, I can have my St. Louis pictures up.