Comic Con 2016 Pictures

It was the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman so it was a very-wonder-woman con!!

 Wonder Woman Costume from New Movie

Original Wonder Woman Costume
It wasn't stored correctly so it is badly faded
but still awesome

Always get a mystery box!!
Yours may have an Umpa-Lumpa

Get a Haircut, Hippie

Tom wears his hair rather short and Sam prefers to wear his longer.  Not super long but down to his shoulders.  It tends to be rather curly, when it's clean, and rather unkempt.  When it gets particularly unruly, John will suggest that he get a haircut.  Tom got a haircut about a week and a half ago, but Sam took a pass. At dinner last night,

John, "Sam, you need a haircut."
Me, "I like his hair long."
John, <nodding towards Tom> "I'm not saying he should get something like that. Just get it trimmed up and.....contained."
Sam, <standing up and flipping his hair back> "I'm a wild stallion and can not be contained!"
Then he started prancing in place.
clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

Your Civic Duty

So John came home a few weeks ago and asked, "Why haven't you been called for jury duty?"
Me, "Oh my god, I can't believe you said that out loud!"
John, "<someone> at work got a summons..."
Me, "Stop talking!"
John, "He was saying...."
Me, "OHMYGODIMNOTLISTENINGIMNOTLISTENING"
And I left the room.

About a week and a half later, I got a jury summons in the mail.
I immediately called John at work.
Me, "I am so angry with YOU!"
John, "whhhaaaa"
Me, "This is all your fault! I told you not to talk about it but, oh no, you wouldn't listen to me."
John, 'I..waa..hh"
Me, "I got a summons for jury duty. YOUSONOFABITCH!"
And I hung up.

When John got home from work later that day, he reminded me that I could request a deferral. Yeah, yeah, I knew that and I showed him the back of the summons. The back 3/4 of the sheet dealt with deferments.  There were fourteen circumstances listed that would disqualify you as a potential juror.  Although, I'm sure, that are thousands more that they haven't thought of yet, like I'm rehabilitating a family of squirrels and they require feeding every four hours. And, no, we're not running out of squirrels but every squirrel is precious, do you really want me to set PETA on your ass?

One reason is, "insufficient knowledge of the English language" which begs the question, how did you read that?  But more importantly, this is the number one reason to learn a second language.  If I knew a second language I would totally pretend not to understand English.  I used to work with a gal who would do that.  It was really funny until the time I ended up dealing with a moron at the warehouse sale and she went upstairs to get pizza.
Sonja, <in fake broken Chinese-English>, "No speeek ennn-gleeeesh"
Me, <yelling down the aisle after her>, "YES, YOU DO!"
Stay in school, kids. Knowledge is power.

Did you know that you can't get called for jury duty if you've committed a felony?  That to me is totally backwards.  Felons have a far great knowledge of the criminal justice system than the rest of us.  My knowledge base comes from binge watching Law and Order. As far as I know, the average criminal trial last 23 minutes.  Felons have lived this shit. Some have made a career of their involvement with the criminal justice system. Jury duty should be part of their parole package.
Felon #1, "Aw, man, you can't do that. Where's the probably cause?"
Felon #2, "See, that right there is grounds for an appeal."

You can also get out of jury duty if you are breast feeding a child but here's the catch. It doesn't specify whose child, and you only get deferment for one year. So, by my thinking, I could get a stack of business cards that read "Jennifer Moore, Wet Nurse" and I'm free for life.

Unfortunately none of the Deferment Options apply to me so I figured, what the hell, it's summer vacation. May as well get it over with while the boys are out of school.  Then John reminded me that the date was the week before ComicCon and if I were to get selected for a jury it could screw up our vacation.  Well, that would seriously suck so I got online and requested a postponement until after our trip to San Diego.  Since then I've been thinking, what could they really do to me if I didn't show up? Really?  I've never had a warrant issued against me so I could check that off the ole Bucket List. I guess I could be charged with Contempt and throw in county lock-up, but, honestly, at my age, my biggest concern would be whether or not the mattress was stained.

Not surprisingly, county lock-up has fallen into the same category as rehab or a psych-ward.  (I had this conversation with my friend, Tina, a while ago.)  I've decided that a stint in rehab/psych ward wouldn't be that bad.  I mean, John would have to send me to a nice one or he'd look bad. He'd need a shiny brochure to show people, "look at the pretty garden she can walk through." So what are we really talking about here? Detox would be a breeze; how long does it take to get Chardonnay out of your system? No one writhes on the bathroom tiles, moaning "It was a young vintage. And rather fruity." So what's left? Someone else is cooking and cleaning, and I'd wear pajamas all day so bonus, no laundry. That leaves jigsaw puzzles in the rec-room, and sitting in a circle and talking about our feelings. Bitch, please. It's not like I'm going to be working through tough emotional issues that I was hereto for unaware of. Hell, I could diagnose everyone else in the first 20 minutes; the counselor could take the week off.  Think how much sleep I'd get. And I love checkers! Sure, jail would be louder and John would need to bring me cartons of smokes so I could stay in the card games. But I do play a mean game of Spades and I know when to lose. That coupled with the fact that my commissary account would always be flush, I think I could carry myself for a couple of days.  Tina totally agreed and had been contemplating it herself.  That's why we're friend.  Incidentally, when the boys were infants, I discovered other mothers in my twins group had also fantasized about getting hospitalized.  Not with anything serious, mind you, just something minor so we could get some sleep for a couple of days. I guess things really don't change all that much.

So here I sit.  Waiting for 5:00 to roll around to see if I'll be driving up to Richmond tomorrow, through rush hour traffic, mind you,  to see if I will be participating our democratic legal system.  And I CAN'T forget to bring my cell phone charger.  If I get stuck up there all day and my phone dies, that would be a disaster.  See, these are my chief concerns: dead batteries, mattresses, and rush hour traffic.  I should be dismissed on those grounds alone.  Potential Juror #15 does not appear to be taking this very seriously.  And won't stop bitching that she's only getting paid $27.  Keeps yelling, "I don't get out of bed for less that $30".  Communism is starting to sound good.

Let it Begin! Let it Begin!

San Diego Comic Con - Before the Madness!

And AT&T thinks we're in Mexico. I'm sure Trump will get that straightened out.

Outlander Finale Party

So I've been collecting all these old whiskey bottles.  I was planning on making them into wine bottle lights; you know, where you drill a hole down at the base and put christmas lights inside? I had four or five of various shapes and sizes, and a couple of Aberlour which is my new favorite whiskey.  The Aberlour bottles are really nice. Kinda shaped like apothecary bottles and really solid, and I couldn't bring myself to recycle any of these because they're really nice bottles.  There must be something else I could do with them and then it hit me. I could fill them with candy and give them to the gals that were coming over for my Outlander Finale party.  Oh, I could tie tartan ribbons around them too.  How festive would that be?

So in addition to the several assorted whiskey bottles in the garage, I had four Aberlour bottles in the kitchen filled with assorted candies and I just needed two more. A few days before the party, John and I were at the grocery store,
Me, "Oh, I need two more bottles of Aberlour."
John, "Ok"
Me, "Waaaaiitt, they don't usually cost that much."
John, "Yeah, they do."
Me, "No way, they were cheaper than that."
As I started thinking that I'd single-handedly created a spike in Aberlour pricing when John said, "Why don't you just buy something else. Or use two from the garage?"
Me, "I can't. I've already got four Aberlour bottles and I can't have four of the same bottles and two different ones, different meaning they don't match the Aberlour or different meaning they don't match each other or the Aberlour either way won't work.  They either need to be all the same or all different and the four at home are already filled with candy so if I switch to all different then I may need more candy and I found the candy in several different stores and I still need to get candy to fill the last two and finding candy that fits in a whiskey bottle is not as easy as you think and I want all the candy to be different..."
By now I've got the heels of my hands pressed against my eyes.
Me, "It's hurts to be in my head..."
John, "Stop. Just get the Aberlour and let's go.
So we left before I started dripping more crazy on the floor.  "Clean up, Aisle 10"

Now on to the ribbon.  That should be easy, right?  Nope. No, tartan ribbon in a 10 mile radius and I ended up buying it on Amazon.  Whatever, it was only $8.  After a week, I remembered the order and thought it was odd that it hadn't arrived yet.  I pulled up the shipping info online and it wasn't going to be here for 6 weeks?  Six Weeks?  How can anything take six weeks to ship from Amazon? I'm pretty sure they could ship their CEO to me in less than six weeks. Unless he's coming from China.  How did I manage to order the only item on Amazon.com that ships from china on a boat? And not only is it slow but it's a tiny little bag of ribbon being throw in a 40' container which is being thrown on a container ship and sent off across the Pacific in the slow lane.  That bag of ribbon is never getting here.
John, "Dont' you remember The Wire? They lost a container full of whores. You're screwed."

Well, the ribbon did show up, the morning of and the party went off without a hitch. Lots of good food.  Lots of good whiskey. We played Outlander Bingo. One of the squares was "Bonnie Prince Charles acts like a tit" so that was basically a free spot for everyone.

A few unexpected things happened.  Like this:

Suzanne brought an Outlander cake complete with the Red Dress, Standing Stones and Jamie's kilt.
Me, "Oh my god. Did you make this?"
Suzanne, "Yeah, right."
Me, "Okay, stupid question."

As we got ready to finally start watching the show, we started to hear music.
"Do you hear that?"
"Is that someone's ring tone?
"Who's playing bag pipe music?"
A few folks wandered over to the window and....

Holy Crap, there's a bagpiper on my lawn!

I'm ashamed to admit that my first thought was, "Oh my god, what a coincidence!" Luckily that thought flew out of my mind as quickly as it entered and I didn't say it out loud.  We all started asking one another if they had arranged it but when no one fes'd up we realized it was John.  "That's why he's been texting and asking what we were doing!" Sure enough it was John.
Suzanne, "Did your man do this? My man has never sent me another man!"
DeeDee, "Is he going to strip?"
And this is how you know you're old. You're old when someone says, "Is he going to strip?"but not in an excited tone of voice but in a 'if he strips, you are definitely getting a letter from the home owners' association' tone of voice. He didn't strip, thank god, but he did take requests and even tried to teach Carol how to play.  And we all had a dram or two on the lawn with him.

All in all it was a great party. It must have been a great party because I woke up at 10:45 with bruises on my shins and John standing in the doorway asking, "Is there a penis on that cake?"

Slainte!

I hate squirrels

So I was driving to the gym this morning and I had to make a tricky right turn between two cyclists. You know how that goes when you're playing a game of Politeness Chicken (thank you, Louis C.K.) You go, no you go, wait, who's going, okay, you go. It took a while but once around the corner I had to stop again to wait for a squirrel to decide which side of the street he was going to dart towards.

This made me think about an animal rescue show that we watched awhile ago.  It took place in the south somewhere, Kentucky? I don't remember.  One episode featured a group that rehabilitated the animals in their homes and yes that did mean that the injured and/or wounded animals were being treated on the kitchen counter right next to food. People food.  "Are they going to eat that?"  "Shh" "Seriously, you can't eat that" "Shhh"  Anyway, they were helping some cool animals like beavers and deer, the occasional fox. But in every one of these homes there were squirrels, and not just one or two.  I think six must be the smallest lot size for squirrels.  Apparently they get blow from their nests during storms which is unfortunate but then again, aren't storms the only predators the squirrels have?  Storms and Goodyears. Michelins. (sorry, Jane) After the fourth or fifth house with a plastic bin full of squirrels, I started thinking "Are we running out of squirrels? As a country, do we have a squirrel shortage? 'Cause I've got a tree full of them. If Kentucky is running low, I could send them some of ours." When I voiced those thoughts, I was shamed into silence. Okay. I guess it's just me and the dogs that don't really care for squirrels. After a few episodes Sam was getting really excited about helping animals. John jumped on this enthusiasm and found a volunteer program with the local animal shelter. We had Sam signed up and six weeks paid for in under 10 minutes.  You've got to strike while the iron is hot, especially with Sam who is apt to reach for an ipad and decide to never stand up again.  It was after marking the calendar and printing off the receipt that I realized we had just paid for Sam to be a volunteer because we live in a stupid place. And all of this was going through my head as I was waiting for that stupid squirrel to get out of the road and what is a squirrel anyway but a rat with a pretty tail and here I am playing Politeness Chicken with a tarted-up rat so I said 'fuck it' and drove on.  9:15 in the morning and I'm mentally exhausted. God, I hate squirrels.

Happy 4th

Assigned Seating

So yesterday we went to the beach.  Half Moon Bay is about 45 minutes away depending on traffic and we left around 10:30 so we figured we'd eat once we got there.  Being the creatures of habit that we are, we all drifted to our assigned seats.  John driving, me in shotgun, Tom backseat left, Sam backseat right, Abbey on the floor at my feet and Alice standing on my lap/stomach staring out the window.  Abbey is an angel in the car.  She lays down on the floor and chills. She's only had a problem once and that was when we drove up the coast, in the dark, on this winding road, for hours and I was convinced an animal was going to dart into the road so John kept slowing down so that I'd shut up and by the time we reached our destination we were all very happy to not be moving and Abbey climbed out of the car and threw up.

Alice does not chill in the car because Alice does not chill.  Her preferred position is standing on my gunt looking out the window but she also likes to lay down on my lap and stand up and lay down and stand up and jump down on the floor to make sure that Abbey doesn't fall asleep and climb back on my lap and shed. Yesterday was new. It went like this:

Alice stands on my lap and looks into the back seat.
John, "What's that smell?"
Alice sticks her head between the seats.
John, "It smells like salami."
Alice jumps into the back seat.
John and I turn around to look.
Sam is holding a sandwich bag full of salami.
Alice is in love with Sam.
Sam, "What? It's a snack."
John and I turn back around.
A minute goes by.
Me, "The kid is sitting back there with a bag of meat."
John, "I think I'm jealous."

All my life I never knew that the key to a peaceful road trip was a bag of meat.