Blue(and Gold) Christmas

Nothing says Christmas like going to a RAMS FOOTBALL GAME on Christmas Eve!!

Here's a touching family holiday moment. Me, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law tailgating.

Notice the lack of festive holiday red in the above photo. The Rams were playing the Redskins, so the color red was taboo. That little kid wearing red in the background to the left of me was later hogtied and left in the parking lot. (just kidding!)

My poor hubby is suffering from the effects of blinding sunlight right in the face without sunglasses:

Surprisingly, the Rams managed to win in overtime! Merry freaking Christmas St. Louis!

Happy Holidays to Everybody!

If anyone reads this blog besides myself, I wish you Happy Holidays!

I didn't know Daffy Duck changed color and defected to Disney!


Daffy looks happy amongst his new Disney friends(minus Mickey and Huey, who are being glued back together right now):

Johnny Sokko Kicks Total Ass

When I was a kid, I was half girly-girl and half tomboy. I loved Barbies and baby dolls and all that jazz, but I also loved the toys and TV shows geared towards boys since I had two older brothers and NO sisters. A few days ago I was kicking around Amazon.com looking for ways to spend more money. Lo and behold, they have downloadable Johnny Sokko episodes!

For people with short attention spans such as myself, Johnny Sokko is like a Cliff's Notes version of a Godzilla movie. Each episode features an interesting uncomplicated plot with no long boring scenes full of useless dialogue. They only have about 22 minutes per episode to kick ass, so they get busy rather quickly. Behold:

Kickass Flying Robot controlled by Johnny Sokko's wristwatch

Evil villains looking like Japanese Nazi Che Guevaras

Damn, they shoot children on this show!

Bryanboy! Shame on you for shooting Johnny!

Johnny's hot partner calls for help with his ballpoint pen

Now **this** is a kickass monster! Giant Flying Eyeball, WooHoo!

Why do my pancakes always turn out looking like this?

Wait, isn't that the Hindenburg? No! It's Emperor Guillotine's spaceship. It blowed up REAL GOOD!

The bad guy always morphs into a giant monster near the end of the show. Then the Robot kicks its ass.

Giant Robot decides to fly this ugly bastard off to crash into a meteor, never to return.

WAAAAAAAH! Come back giant robot(hey, wasn't this kid shot earlier in the episode?)!

Well that's the end of the whole series. Sorry I spoiled the ending for you!

In years past, many a Christmas ornament in our home was destroyed due to TTWI(tree-trimming while intoxicated) or STTOS(sudden tree-tipping over syndrome). Nowadays the ornaments are being massacred at the hands of my helpful little evil elves. The body count so far this season is 12 ornaments broken, only three of which were salvageable.

Thanks to E6000 Craft Adhesive, this pretty pony didn't have to be euthanized:


This poor innocent snowman jingle bell was the victim of a frightening display of rage by a 3-year-old evil elf. E6000 saved the day again!


Donald bravely smiles past the pain in his shattered foot:


In summary, the totals so far:
Day 1:
Evil Elf: 4 glass globe ornaments, 1 snowman jingle bell, 1 carousel horse
Slightly Less Evil Elf: 2 glass globe ornaments
Me: 1 glass globe ornament (not while intoxicated for a change)

Day 2:
Evil Elf: 1 Donald Duck
Slightly Less Evil Elf: 1 glass icicle
Me: 1 glass globe ornament (still not intoxicated; maybe that's the problem)

Evil Elf is in the lead!

Funyun Soup

I present to you the latest creation of my spirited three-year-old. I put a pot of water on to boil, with the intention of cooking some ravioli. Minutes later I am delighted to discover an apropos frowny-face of floating Fuyuns.

I'm glad that she didn't throw my slices of toasted Asiago Peppercorn Sourdough Boule bread in there as well. Funyuns yes, hoity-toity specialty bread, no!

We're Number One! We're Number One!

WOOHOO!! Not only can we celebrate the fact that our St. Louis Cardinals are the World Series Champions, The city of St. Louis has been deemed The Most Dangerous City in the Entire United States. Detroit was ranked number two. Ha! We beat Detroit again! We're BADASS!

Paula Does California: The Final Chapter

Here's another picture from Nelson's live show. He is chatting with the leggy Alexandra Paul from Baywatch fame.She wouldn't dish up any dirt about her Baywatch costar, "The Hoff", aka David Hasselhoff. C'mon Alexandra! Throw us a bone!

Ahhh, Venice Beach! Too bad we ended up getting a parking ticket. It was street cleaning day, so our primo parking spot was not so primo.

One day I got adventurous and drove down to Laguna Niguel to see my hubby's aunt. Her house has the most fabulous patio. Her BBQ grill/pit thingie had to be set into her yard via a crane because it couldn't get through any other way:

More patio:

Her chihuahua gave me the stinkeye the entire time I was there. If that dog was bigger, I really would've been afraid for my well being:

The view from the Wind and Sea Restaurant at Dana Point:

Obsolete Destruction

I really can't get mad at my three-year-old for destroying this Social Distortion cassette tape. I can't remember the last time I listened to a cassette of any musical persuasion. Nowadays I can just fire up Social Distortion on my iPod(as long as I make sure my evil child doesn't marinate my iPod in the toilet first).

Paula Does California: Part 2

After the Petersen Auto Museum, I was chauffeured around Hollywood to see the sights. The weirdest thing I saw was a truck pulling a trailer with a llama in it going down Hollywood Blvd.
Later in front of the Chinese Theater I saw Anorexic Minnie and Botox Mickey chatting up a Funkadelic Sista who was waiting for the Mothership:

Then I got a rental car and picked up my crazy aunt to go to Nelson Aspen's "Wake Up With Nelson!" cabaret show. We had a fabulous time. His show was a hoot! Nelson is such a sweetie pie and has a fabulous singing voice. I asked my crazy aunt to take a picture of Nelson and me... here's attempt #1:

The second attempt was slightly more successful. Nelson is doing his best AbFab pout, and I'm looking like a dead bloated corpse. Oh well, what can I say? I live in Missouri, not California! And the picture was taken at a "bad" angle(that's what I keep telling myself):

Nelson never takes a bad picture. I am good at looking DEAD. I can be myself for Halloween this year:

Now THIS is a fantastic picture of my Aunt Donna and Nelson because I am the one that took it!

After the show, my aunt provided NO HELP WHATSOEVER when I needed driving directions. I made some right turns and needed to get back on La Cienega but somehow we couldn't find it. All she could say was "Oh I used to work in that AT&T building blahblahblah and over there is the blahblahblah building" Then when we did get to La Cienega she says right at the last second "THERE'S LA CIENEGA! WHY DIDN'T YOU TURN THERE?" Uh, auntie, you're the one that used to work around here, help me out! FocusFocusFocus! I laugh about it now...

What Are They Smoking Down At The Firehouse?

My Kindergartener went on a field trip to the neighborhood firehouse today. Did they learn about "Stop, Drop and Roll?" Did they learn about crawling on the floor when escaping a burning building, feeling closed doors for heat, etc? Ummm, well... My daughter brought home a coloring book, the cover of which is scanned(poorly) below:

Don't worry about fire safety, kids! Sprinklerman will always be there to put out the fire! Yeah, right.

That picture is just... just... well...

Coming soon... "Paula Does California Part 2".

Paula Does California: Part 1

So I didn't perish in an airplane crash like I thought I would. I made it to California and back in one piece. The first touristy thing I did after arriving in LA was go to the Petersen Automotive Museum. I was hoping that Squad 51 from Emergency! would still be on display, but NOOOOOO! NO Squad 51! I was wailing in agony. I'm sure the Petersen personnel were ready to investigate my mournful cries which were carrying through the entire building. BUT!! I got to see the Batmobile:

And the Mach 5:

And Herbie the Love Bug:

And the Hannibal 8 from The Great Race:

What I still want to know is: Squad 51, where are you?!!

Da Plane, Da Plane

I'm getting on a plane this afternoon, heading to LA for some fun. YAY! But I am really not thrilled about flying there. Back when I was young and thought I was immortal, I loved air travel. Nowadays I think I qualify as air travel-phobic. If my plane crashes, just know that my last words were probably IT JUST FIGURES!

I've Lost the Will to Live

Ack, look at my stove and countertop! WAAAH I don't wanna clean that up! My three-year-old daughter wreaked this havoc on my cooking surfaces. Obviously I am a lousy mother who can't watch her kids properly. At least this orange nightmare smelled nice. It consists of Penzey's Taco Seasoning, dried minced garlic, and coarse salt. My husband said I should've re-bottled it and sold it as Paula's Special Taco Seasoning Blend.

Here's an oldie but goodie from 2003, courtesy of my oldest daughter. Mini Fudge Stripes Cookies stuck to the hallway wall:















Mmm-mmm-mmm! Just peel one off the wall and enjoy!

It's All My Doing!

I think my recent imbibing of Cuba Libres during our nearly four-day power outage is why Fidel Castro has passed his Cuban power mojo to his hermanito Raul(supposedly temporarily, yeah right!) while he has surgery for some kind of intestinal problemos. WooHoo! Now I have an excuse to get out the rum bottle and limes again and try to finish him off. Cuba Libre!

Eureka!

Our beloved electricity came back on at 4:40 pm today. WooHoo!! No more Green Acres electrisicall from Mr. Generator!

Wastin' Away Again in Cuba Libreville

I'm sure most of the USA is unaware of this, but St. Louis has been thrown back to the Victorian era via a series of thunderstorms. We have been without electricity since Wednesday evening. Luckily we have a generator or else I wouldn't be typing this blog entry right now. It's just like Green Acres... if I want to plug in the hair dryer, I have to unplug the lamp, or else the generator stalls. I am having trouble adjusting to this "electrisicall"(as Lisa Douglas would say).

Oops

Mr. Generator is our friend

Can't make it through a 3-day power outage without junk food and booze:

Mmmmm, Cuba Libres! Who says power outages have to be unpleasant?

Valuable Workplace Lessons, Part 587

Workplace Lesson #3,666: If you work with pranksters, don't go on vacation for two weeks. They will Saran Wrap your office.

They will have enough time to Saran Wrap your office door too...

Workplace Lesson #3,667: Don't trust the boss to keep office pranksters in line.

Workplace Lesson #3,668: After you return from vacation and clear away miles of Saran Wrap from your office, don't be a good sport and let your coworkers wrap you in Saran Wrap. It's also a bad idea to let them wrap you to your chair.

Workplace Lesson #3,669: Don't expect your coworkers to assist you when you are overheating inside layers of Saran Wrap.

Workplace Lesson #3,770: Coworkers will not help you clean up any prankster debris.

Note: These photos are from 1991. I am too lazy to have a job anymore.