7QTF: On Louie DePalma, Mail and a Very Loved Rabbit

Joining up with Jen, as per Friday usual!

1. When you read "per usual" is it in Danny DeVito's voice? Danny DeVito in his role as Louie DePalma on Taxi, one of the greatest shows ever made. You either know what I'm talking about or you don't. You don't? Ugh. Fine. Minute 5:58 here. Thankyouverymuch.

2. I cut the inside of my lip the other day with my tooth, which I smacked on a Miller Lite bottle. I was beginning to take a drink as I spotted the world's LARGEST cricket just staring at me. Silently mocking me. And just moments ago I cut the roof of my mouth on a fun size Baby Ruth. Do other people have these types of problems?

3. Did you watch the Gilmore Girls? I did. I still do. It was a sad, sad day when that show went off the air. I loved Lorelai. (Who didn't?) I had to answer on a quiz once if I would compare myself to any character on television who would it be (this was pre-Once Upon a Time, FYI), and I said Lorelai Gilmore. She had this thing where she only looked through her mail once a month. She said if she looked through it every day all she got was junk and bills, but if she let it pile up she got cards and actual letters from people, making the experience far more enjoyable. I think I'm getting there. I live in a garage apartment, so my mail is delivered through a mail slot to my front door. My front door leads directly up a flight of stairs into my apartment, so that mail just lands there on the bottom of the stairs. When I get home at night, I look down and all I ever see are circulars, junk mail and bills. Boo. So, as generally neat as I am, I sometimes just let the mail pile up.

4. While I live in a city of almost 50,000 people (I understand it's not a metropolis but not a small town by any means), what I love is the sense of community. The local high school, Huntington High, was 10-0 in its regular season of football and is now still fighting to be state football champion. Around town there are various pizza places, gas stations and other places that have changed their lettered marquees to read "Good Luck Highlanders" or "Way to Go Huntington High." It's so small-town, I know, and I just love it.

5. I wrote this post yesterday on books from my childhood, and now I want to throw all my weekend plans out the window, go to the library, grab up all the kids' books I love and spend all weekend at home on the couch reading. And maybe I will. We gave our kids this Sunday off from Nutcracker rehearsal to rest (wish we could give them next Sunday after Thanksgiving, but it's too close to our show and we need the time) so I have a Saturday AND a Sunday free for the first time since Labor Day weekend. And I think I spent that weekend in Morgantown visiting my grandparents and watching football. So, really, the last time I had a whole weekend free to do whatever I wished at home was sometime in the summer. I do have to run some errands Saturday and get some show-related things done, but maybe I'll find some time to squeeze in a re-read of a Nancy Drew or Baby-Sitters Club book.

6. Sometimes I like to pick up Snicks and hold him for a bit. He doesn't love it, but I don't do it for him. I also love to bury my hands in his soft fur. I don't have great hands -- they are usually painful and hard from my cuticle-picking obsession -- and that's the only thing that makes them feel better. I am not the world's most wonderful person, but I hope that God may consider taking a day or two off my time in Purgatory because of how much I loved and cared for Baby Snicks, one of His littlest and most helpless creations.

7. This article. This article right here. I know I'm not a parent, so maybe I don't get a say, but I am around kids of all ages a LOT because of the dance studio, and I think this is one of the most accurate things I have read in a long time. A couple of years ago I may have been shocked that there were kids in the world who brought parents along for job interviews, but I have seen and heard some things over the past few years that make this scenario far less surprising. And I have good, hard-working kids for the most part. But I look around and think -- raising kids in this day and age would be SCARY. I don't know how you all do it. Ten years ago I would have never said this -- and honestly as a kid I probably thought all homeschooled kids were weird -- but if I had a kid today and the ability, I really think I'd homeschool. I'm not a doomsday theorist and I don't think the world is going to hell in a handbasket (although I do think we have SERIOUS problems that seem to be getting worse) but I really think there is something to the theory that we are raising a generation of helpless whiners.

And on that super uplifting note, I'm outtie 3000. Go see Jennifer.