more cuteness yall

seriously
if i post this many pictures of someone else's kids
what do you think i will do when we start a family of our own
its gonna be off the hook

here is what finn looks like this week:





this one is my favorite. so thoughtful:

lazy sunday in decatur

and by lazy, i mean filled with work.

life has been flying by me these last few weeks filled with work and teaching and friends.
i thought for a second this posting would have no pictures then i thought back to what i did last weekend, and i remembered i have pictures from that. let me start there and i will move forward to this weekend.

last weekend our friends kennie, kellie and their amost two year old daughter emalee came to stay with us. while we have seen emalee once before when they visited, we didn't really get to know her. luckily, this trip we did get to meet her. she is totally adorable, and hella quirky. she has her own funky sense of humor and it kept jes and i laughing the whole weekend.

her favorite (cat) toy in the house was the cardboard cat scratcher we got horace for his 7th bday last month. here she is, about to bite it. along with being adorable and quirky, she was also teething. all four eye teeth (maybe they are called canines-you know the fangs) AT THE SAME TIME. poor buddy. she did real good with it but by the end of the night they really started hurting. kennie figured out that a popsicle really helped numb the pain. anywho, here is em with the cat scratcher:



luckily, emily and larry were pretty ok with this:



along with getting to spend some quality time with them, we also got introduced to a great book called "dot and dash." its the story of a ladybug (dot) and a turtle (dash) who are best friends and their journeys. somehow dot fucks up her antennae and they have to go to this special wishing forest or something to get it fixed. when they get to the forest she says "bing bang banana, fix my atennae" and then dash pulls on it and it goes "TWAIIIINNNNGGGG" and its fixed. why am i telling you this? well b/c the whole weekend we kept saying "bing bang banana, fix my antennae." and then cutey mc cuterson emalee would often say "TWANG." you sort of had to be there, but really it was cute. here is a pic of kennie reading her the book. look at her michelin man arms. so cute:



and then here is one of the whole family. (i didn't do such a great job getting pics b/c it was a busy and tiring weekend. to all you readers that are either parents and/or take care of kids in some way. how do you do it? i simply had a kid in my house for a few days and it is exhausting. i just kept worrying she was going to fall down the stairs or hit her eye on the corner of the coffee table or some shit. our house is SO NOT CHILDPROOFED).



so that was last weekend. this past week was filled mostly with work and teaching. my job is going well and i am bonkers about teaching. my students are so smart and engaged and EXCITED to talk about class materials. i love it. but it takes a lot of time and is exhausting so on mondays and wednesdays i am pretty useless. though on mondays we go to sarah and kim's to watch weeds which is wonderful. last week instead of watching weeds we watched this new lesbian show called "exes and ohs." it was embarassingly horrible. i mean it makes l word look like an award winner. i think i decided i need to start writing tv shows. fuck this blog thing. the world needs a REAL GOOD lesbian show. maybe after i publish my dissertation i will work on that.

on friday jes went to some sort of real estate firm work fair thing. i am not sure what it is called. oh i just asked her and she said it was an "informational interview." anywho it went really well and gave her hope and encouragement for the future. and she wore her suit so she looked like a sexy lawyer. i didn't get to see this b/c i was already at work (oh bother) but nonetheless, i KNOW she looked fly. friday night we spent in and did twelve hundred loads of laundry, and just got our lives together b/c we had been rushing through our week so much. it felt so good to just chillax, hang with the cats and eat a nice spinach salad and some cheese quesadillas.

yesterday we got up pretty early and got out of the house. jes had to return her saddle to her parents house (she is selling them. did you know she was an award winning equestrian. she was. true story.) anywho so we dropped that off and then headed out to dawsonsville, georgia to do some serious shopping at the outlet mall there. see for my bday i got some money and gift cards from a few folks because i am in dire need of some teaching clothes. i have some nice stuff but the nicest outfits i have are really all comprised of jes's clothes and some day soon she will need them so i had to get my own shit (which of course i will share with her). yall jes and i were fucking shopping machines. for reals. we had a list and a mission. we would go in, find what we needed then go into the dressing room together and i would try all my stuff on and she hers and then we would switch, b/c pretty much everything we go we were sharing. then we have the "keeps" and the "give backs" and then we would be on our way. i don't really like shopping but b/c we were systematic about it AND most everything we got was on crazy sale, it was ok. we both were almost crying by the end b/c were were tired, my back was KILLING me and her neck was KILLING her and we both had low blood sugar. here is what we got:

new adidas comptown shoes, black and chartruese (not on the list but only $20)- dj
new adidas skate 3/4 shoes, black, olive and white (also not on the list but only $21)-jh
black v neck sweater
grey v neck sweater
wheat sweater
blue men's button down
wine women's button down
black men's zip up sort of formal jacket
a women's grey pinstriped suit that was hella on sale- holla
dark grey egyptian cotton pinstriped men's pants (they feel like jammies)
light grey women's trousers
brown women's trousers
cute shorts that were less than 4$ and look like postal service workers shorts without the stripes
brown work shoes-jh (it took her seriously three minutes to find them. hate her for that)
cute brown plaid hat for jes
5 pair of socks
a brown belt

isn't that BONKERS?!?

what i did NOT get is some more work shoes. i did really try and i even tried some on, but they were just a little too big (even though they were my size) so i figured i would wait until i find just the right size and just the right kind. its really hard for me to find what i want with work shoes b/c i need to be able to walk to work in them but they also have to look ok with trousers. i have been rocking some all black shell toes and when its warm i have some nice work sandles, but i need something that is a step up from the shell toes. they are out there. i will find them.

then last night we met up with sarah and kim and angie and elin (and some others) to celebrate kim's bday. we met them up at eddie's attic to see sonia leigh and this woman adrianne. no last name. it was SO GREAT to see them and to hear a little local music. after sonia leigh was over we headed over to this very weird lesbian bar in downtown decatur called Paris. they were VERY HAPPY to see us there. we got free food and free shots and folks just wouldn't leave us alone. people kept singing happy birthday to kim and she was wanting to crawl into the floor i think. luckily she deflected some of the attention to me and this random dude started saying defamatory things about latinos and talking about margaret cho to me. i told kim just b/c we were celebrating her bday does not mean i can't still pop her on the mouth. she just laughed and laughed. finally, he went away.

today jes and i are volunteering at this fundraiser for our friend mel who was in a motorcycle wreck about a month ago. it's called "blue lights in the basement" and it's at msr. i hope we help raise thousands and thousands of dollars for him b/c he mos def needs it.

ok jes is up, the cats are meowing for food and i need a cup of decaf.
have an outstanding sunday yall.
a few bdays this week:
my friend kim's is october 18. and my friend azad's is october 20. i love me some libras.

one more thing about my birthday

the last thing i want to say about my birthday is that azad left me this hilarious message on my voicemail on my birthday.
he explained to me that my last year was my "jesus year" (jesus was crucified when he was 33 years old). here is a picture in case you have forgotten:



well azad told me that THIS year (my 34th year) is my "sweetness year." and for you sorry non-chicago folks, sweetness was the knick name of the greatest Chicago Bear ever, #34, Mr. Walter Payton:





so there you have it. i have officially declared this my sweetness year. may the power of payton bring me great things this year.

a tale of two birthdays-part three

on friday we headed up to the north georgia mountains to celebrate emma's bday at a total cush cabin
all the rooms had robes and slippers (for when you went in the hot tub) and little bags of toiletries. much nicer than any cabin i have ever stayed in. once again, emma was totally surprised. both by jes and i and our other friends kiki and ria.
it was a totally chill time. we talked and ate and hung out in the hot tub and then the kids played poker while i read trashy magazines, gave them emotional support and eventually, i went to bed.

here is a picture of the cabin:



it was really amazing. getting there at night was a wee bit scary b/c it was so dark and the woods were so thick, but rocking on the porch while looking up at the twinkling stars really made up for everything. in the morning we got up earlier than everyone else to make it back home to emily, who was working her way out of a funk. the views from that same porch in the morning were breathtaking. the air was so crisp and clean. i really can't wait to go back.

the best part of the cabin was our room. it had a horse theme which i thought was very fitting for jes. here is a picture of our headboard:



and here is our quilt. loves it:



even though it was a very classy joint, we found one of the wine glasses had been taped together. here kiki models how klassy with a "k" it was:



speaking of classy, check out the folks in the hot tub:



not sure what everyone was looking up at.

here is one of jes and i before we got into the hot tub:



and finally, one of 30 year old emma with a killer handful of kings:



we got home fairly early on saturday and emily seemed to be doing better. we saw her eat a few times on friday (she had not eaten the two days before) so we think maybe she had some sort of a belly ache. we spent saturday and sunday getting some work done, soaking up some sun and having a delish burrito with sarah, kim, nikki and christina. it was a lovely weekend altogether.

this weekend kelli, kennie and their daughter emmalee are coming to stay with us. i look forward to spending some time with them. ok, getting pretty tired. good night.

a tale of two birthdays-part two

i am not quite tired enough to fall asleep
and jes is watching the first episode of heroes on tivo, so i thought i would blog
so the second bday i want to tell you about is my friend emma's
she turned 30 on friday, september 28th but the excitement started sooner than that
on wednesday, emma's sweetie kristina surprised her with a little fun at log jam at mary's

the surprise was us, some balloons and most importantly, some cupcakes
our friend christina (with a "c") made these divine cupcakes. take a look;



if you want some too, you can go to her website at:

http://www.sugarmamascupcakery.com/home.html

here is a picture of christina with nikki. how cute are they?



pretty fing cute. also cute was shannon. she dressed up for the theme "gym class":



and here is one of me me and jes:



we set up the cupcakes and balloons and stuff and then emma and kristina showed up with their friend nico from new york and diana from michigan. it was one surprise after another. here is a picture of emma blowing out the candles:



and here is one of her and her bday posse. holla!



i think she was really surprised and felt pretty loved, so mission accomplished. wednesday is a school night, so we couldn't stay out too late. we were home and in the bed shortly after midnight.

stay tuned for part three.