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so the other half of my weekend was hanging out with my parents.
my mom always gets together a big box of stuff to send me for every holiday, and valentine's day is one of her favorites, except that this year i was there to receive the box in person, so she was psyched. there was all kinds of stuff in there: knee-high red and pink striped toe socks (with little monkeys on the foot and hearts going up the leg--jess, you'd love them), and a bunch of candy, and gar's most recent story collection (which was an awesome pick from my wish list on her part), and some other stuff too.
her present for my dad was, however, more awesome than anything she gave me. my dad reads these books by richard marcinko, who is a former navy seal and writes those military ass-kicking spy sorts of books that a lot of men tend to like. well, they came out with a richard marcinko action figure.
this action figure is seriously the coolest grown-up toy ever. he's all fully jointed, so you can pose him different ways, even make him sit with his legs crossed looking all relaxed (which we'll see later in this story...). he's got a bunch of grenades and guns and ammo, plus little bags and straps and stuff to hold it, so he can carry all his equipment himself. he even has a little ski mask, for those special reconaissance missions. my dad was so psyched. he took him out of the box right away and started playing with him.
later on in the weekend, having realized that richard is exactly barbie-sized, i snuck up to the attic and found a few barbies who hadn't been totally ruined by my childhood or the years since they'd been used. i brushed out their hair and got them all dressed up. i got two of the blondes in pretty (but slutty) dresses with shoes and jewelry and everything, and the third, asian friend barbie or whatever, i dressed in a black stretchy catsuit. i took them downstairs and stole the richard figure, and posed them all in the back room--richard reclining cozily with an arm around each blonde babe (one hand on one barbie's breast, while he's looking down the bodice of the other barbie). the third one, in the cat suit, borrowed richard's ski mask and snuck up behind them looking like a ninja. this totally cracked up my dad when he saw it.
major event # 2 of the weekend was the shopping. mom informed me that both kohl's and strawbridge's had been having major sales that week; she dumped a giant bag of $3 and $5 finds in my lap. she had found me some pretty good stuff, too. so on sunday we decided to head for the stores to see if any other good stuff was left on the clearance racks. from kohl's i got a sweater (brown and stripy!), a top (which i may wear to the party on saturday), and a pair of jeans (which fit, but are supertight, so they're going to be my "going commando" jeans), and a valentine's candle (reduced from $5.99 to $2.39! how could i resist?), all for less than $30. then at strawbridge's i got a khaki skirt and my mom got a sweater and pants, all for less than $20. we were psyched. we also stopped by waldenbooks, where rick chancellor works. we chatted with him and joked that we were going to make him use a ladder to get down books for us from the top shelf. we found i think four books between the three of us (dad, mom, and i), and were getting ready to check out when rick told us they were running a buy-four, get-one-free deal. well, if we were going to get one free, we felt certain we could find one more book. i immediately thought of grabbing Kushiel's Chosen, since i finished the first one and was jonesing for the next one, but when i looked on the shelf i saw they only had Kushiel's Dart. then i happened to look up, and what do you think i saw on the top shelf? so i had to get rick and make him use the ladder after all! but we got it free. the other book i got was anne rice's Blackwood Farm, which i hadn't even heard was out, let alone in paperback. not like i've been keeping up with my anne rice, but still. i'm not behind by too many books now, but the reason i got interested in catching up is that the newest of her books combines the vampire series with the mayfair witch series, one of the conclusions of which is mona mayfair becoming a vampire. cool. but this new book also involves characters from Blackwood Farm, so i needed to catch up.
after the shopping, we went to the new Pizzeria Uno for lunch/dinner. our waitress was this supercool chick with pink chunks in her dyed-black hair, you know what she looked like. so mom orders a margarita, and i get a water because i'm still thinking, and she turns to dad, who comes out with "Ying Ying! Ying Ying!" now, this is not completely insane of him (we have a running family joke where we refer to Ying Ying Yager Yite), but the waitress was floored. she had no idea what to say, because it was by no means obvious that what he was asking for was a Yuengling. so i kick him under the table and say, "Stop acting special!" because he sounded like he was retarded or something. and then he orders a Yuengling, and the waitress knows it's okay to laugh, but she was still a little hesitant with us. for our part, every time she walked away one of us would say Ying Ying and the other two would crack up.
sunday night we played rummikub and scattergories, and monday morning mom and i went to brunch with laur and colleen. and then i drove home to boston, and had a lovely game night with my friends. teh end.
my mom always gets together a big box of stuff to send me for every holiday, and valentine's day is one of her favorites, except that this year i was there to receive the box in person, so she was psyched. there was all kinds of stuff in there: knee-high red and pink striped toe socks (with little monkeys on the foot and hearts going up the leg--jess, you'd love them), and a bunch of candy, and gar's most recent story collection (which was an awesome pick from my wish list on her part), and some other stuff too.
her present for my dad was, however, more awesome than anything she gave me. my dad reads these books by richard marcinko, who is a former navy seal and writes those military ass-kicking spy sorts of books that a lot of men tend to like. well, they came out with a richard marcinko action figure.
this action figure is seriously the coolest grown-up toy ever. he's all fully jointed, so you can pose him different ways, even make him sit with his legs crossed looking all relaxed (which we'll see later in this story...). he's got a bunch of grenades and guns and ammo, plus little bags and straps and stuff to hold it, so he can carry all his equipment himself. he even has a little ski mask, for those special reconaissance missions. my dad was so psyched. he took him out of the box right away and started playing with him.
later on in the weekend, having realized that richard is exactly barbie-sized, i snuck up to the attic and found a few barbies who hadn't been totally ruined by my childhood or the years since they'd been used. i brushed out their hair and got them all dressed up. i got two of the blondes in pretty (but slutty) dresses with shoes and jewelry and everything, and the third, asian friend barbie or whatever, i dressed in a black stretchy catsuit. i took them downstairs and stole the richard figure, and posed them all in the back room--richard reclining cozily with an arm around each blonde babe (one hand on one barbie's breast, while he's looking down the bodice of the other barbie). the third one, in the cat suit, borrowed richard's ski mask and snuck up behind them looking like a ninja. this totally cracked up my dad when he saw it.
major event # 2 of the weekend was the shopping. mom informed me that both kohl's and strawbridge's had been having major sales that week; she dumped a giant bag of $3 and $5 finds in my lap. she had found me some pretty good stuff, too. so on sunday we decided to head for the stores to see if any other good stuff was left on the clearance racks. from kohl's i got a sweater (brown and stripy!), a top (which i may wear to the party on saturday), and a pair of jeans (which fit, but are supertight, so they're going to be my "going commando" jeans), and a valentine's candle (reduced from $5.99 to $2.39! how could i resist?), all for less than $30. then at strawbridge's i got a khaki skirt and my mom got a sweater and pants, all for less than $20. we were psyched. we also stopped by waldenbooks, where rick chancellor works. we chatted with him and joked that we were going to make him use a ladder to get down books for us from the top shelf. we found i think four books between the three of us (dad, mom, and i), and were getting ready to check out when rick told us they were running a buy-four, get-one-free deal. well, if we were going to get one free, we felt certain we could find one more book. i immediately thought of grabbing Kushiel's Chosen, since i finished the first one and was jonesing for the next one, but when i looked on the shelf i saw they only had Kushiel's Dart. then i happened to look up, and what do you think i saw on the top shelf? so i had to get rick and make him use the ladder after all! but we got it free. the other book i got was anne rice's Blackwood Farm, which i hadn't even heard was out, let alone in paperback. not like i've been keeping up with my anne rice, but still. i'm not behind by too many books now, but the reason i got interested in catching up is that the newest of her books combines the vampire series with the mayfair witch series, one of the conclusions of which is mona mayfair becoming a vampire. cool. but this new book also involves characters from Blackwood Farm, so i needed to catch up.
after the shopping, we went to the new Pizzeria Uno for lunch/dinner. our waitress was this supercool chick with pink chunks in her dyed-black hair, you know what she looked like. so mom orders a margarita, and i get a water because i'm still thinking, and she turns to dad, who comes out with "Ying Ying! Ying Ying!" now, this is not completely insane of him (we have a running family joke where we refer to Ying Ying Yager Yite), but the waitress was floored. she had no idea what to say, because it was by no means obvious that what he was asking for was a Yuengling. so i kick him under the table and say, "Stop acting special!" because he sounded like he was retarded or something. and then he orders a Yuengling, and the waitress knows it's okay to laugh, but she was still a little hesitant with us. for our part, every time she walked away one of us would say Ying Ying and the other two would crack up.
sunday night we played rummikub and scattergories, and monday morning mom and i went to brunch with laur and colleen. and then i drove home to boston, and had a lovely game night with my friends. teh end.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-17 11:04 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-02-17 11:28 am (UTC)From:does that mean you have barbies that were totally ruined by your childhood and/or the years since? are you attached to them? knowing what you do about the nature of my photography, would you be willing to contribute them as art supplies? it would be a perfect birthday present! i mean, since you can't make my thesis reading and all...[/guilt_trip]
Re:
Date: 2004-02-17 12:28 pm (UTC)From:and i *wanted* to make your thesis reading...
Re:
Date: 2004-02-17 01:02 pm (UTC)From:and i probably won't make any more photographs actually *happen* until after the final deadline in may (though it would be a great way to procrastinate). so whenever you want to send them and however many you want to part with will make me bounce and giggle like a little girl!
(gotta go. barbara's f***ing computer's gonna reboot itself in 3 minutes, and no is not an option.)