Memoirs of a Lola..and like, such as the Iraq.

Cold Toes

Kortland just came running into my bedroom (after playing with the neighbor kids for 4 hours straight) and jumped in my bed (where I have been editing photographs all the livelong day while blissfully half-watching/listening to the undeniably delicious dialogue of Molly Ringwald and her merry band of high school misfits in “Pretty in Pink”) and gave me a big hug, and buried his face in my neck, and I …SQUEALED! Dang his nose was c-c-c-c-cold! So were his fingers! I squealed again. Kort thought this was hilarious, morphed into the “Chill Monster,” and chased his poor mother all over the house. Despite the fact that I am fully trained/prepared to kill a home invader/rapist/door-to-door-salesman-who-decides-to-ignore-my-"No Soliciting (Except Girl Scouts)" sign with my bare hands, I’m a fairly convincing victim/damsel in distress when I wanna be.

Anyway, Kort and I wound up snuggled back in my bed trying to get those little red fingers warm, and I couldn’t help but wax nostalgic about all of the amazing fall evenings of my childhood when my always bare toes were always too cold and the each fun-filled day always seemed to end too soon. I still remember the tingle of my toes as they unthawed on the heater vent in the kitchen of our Monroe house. The heat bit and nipped away at the chill that had inevitably set in bone deep. I had ignored the cold as it slowly crept into the little green valley and opted instead to pray to the God of sunsets for just 10 more minutes of illumination for our game playing, hut-building, tree climbing, and warmth. I remember the feeling of warm feet shifting uncomfortably on cold grass as I stepped out for the first time that evening, and I also remember thinking to myself: “It’s okay, 20 minutes from now, I won’t feel a thing.” And I was always right. This technique also works in mountain streams and creek beds. It’s painfully cold, but only for a small moment. Then, after the pain has subsided, you’re free to roam the mountains (or fall grasses as the case may be) to your heart’s content, and you do it in a way that cannot be experienced with sneakers.

(And no it never occurred to me to put on some shoes…don’t you know 10 year old Laura at all? I was hard core yo!)

Anyway, good times. Good times indeed.

Miss Lily.

I love her (and miss her) so much it hurts.

Tackling and such…

I don’t want to talk about this too much, as the wound is still fresh, but Kort also came home with some MAJOR grass stains on a school shirt that I totally “splurged” on when I purchased it because I loved it so much, and when I asked him what happened, he said that a bunch of girls tackled him on the playground during recess. He’s in first grade (and clearly the male version of his mother) and I sort of want to cry. Okay, I really want to cry. My baby is growing up, and it is killing me! On another note, those grass stains had darn well better come out, or miss Hannah, and Montana, and whoobie whatie whoever else are gonna have a lot of splaining to do…

Obama + a Nobel Prize …really?

I was jeeeust sitting here (yesterday) watching a news report in which Obama announced that pulling the troops out of Iraq was absolutely not an option right now, and I was thinking to myself:

“Hm, I DISTINCTLY remember Obama taking McCain to the cleaners over that very issue. McCain said that it WASN’T reasonable to expect the war to end suddenly and without the proper level of progress/resolution in Iraq, and Obama totally attacked him for it and made many a promise regarding soldiers coming home for good in 6 months or less. I guess it’s a lot easier to talk the political “Hey there! I have big ideas, and I sure love making promises! Pick me to be President of the United States!” talk than it is to do the “I’m an awesome, promise-keeping President of the United States” walk, now isn’t it? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the big O is 0 for 12 in the promise-keeping department thus far… and I was just thinking about how convenient it is to not see anything from a realistic standpoint until you actually TRY to implement your idealistic, “perfect world” plans in a world that is anything but ideal/perfect.

So, just ONE day after I come to a profound realization about just how completely unchanged (at least, not for the better, anyway) our little country has been post, I find out he’s being given a Nobel Peace Prize. Awesome. I want to be Obama. How charmed is that guy’s life, seriously? What do you wanna bet there’s a staff of at least 20 people waiting outside of the bathroom ready to applaud and congratulate him on a “world class potty” when he gets out? I mean it! I want to be him.

If I was Obama for the day, I could kick puppies, show up late to dinner, forget to put the toilet seat down, and give huge sums of bailout money (stolen from hard-working middle class taxpayers everywhere) to the billionaires who supported my campaign so they can keep their house in the city AND their house in the Hamptons, and don’t forget the yacht…what would a thieving, conniving billionaire be without a yacht or two (or three)? After all, it would be downright un-American for the rich to actually PAY for their mistakes and SUFFER the natural consequences of being thieving liars for most of their pathetic existences.

If I was Obama for the week, I could break my promise to send the troops home (subsequently keeping the country at war) on Thursday, and THEN receive a Nobel Peace Prize (emphasis on peace) on Friday! Excellent! I don’t think an existence gets more charmed than that folks. And yeah, I know that keeping our troops out there is probably the right thing to do – I’m just saying, That’s not what he promised when he was running for election (one of many promises that resulted in his winning the ELECTION). I just think it’s charming and lovely that he doesn’t have to own his mistakes and short comings. It’s all kittens, rainbows, parties, parades, and Nobel Peace Prizes in Obama’s world. Am I so crazy for desperately wanting to live there?

David Sides

Oh, and have you heard of this guy? I love.

I have to say, Linkin Park is a fairly amazing band… this is further evidenced by David Sides’ piano version of their song. I’m not really “into” their genre per se, but these guys really “get” me, and not in the whole “they really know who I am inside, they really ‘get’ me” sort of way (because let’s face it, that would be melodramatic, egotistical, and mild-to-moderately creepy considering the fact that they have no idea I even exist…though I’m pretty sure that last week, Perez Hilton said that their drummer is an avid follower of The Lola Letters Blog…still, you know Perez, he's HARDLY credible, and that rumor hasn’t been PROVEN yet and really, it's really neither here nor there.) but rather in the sense that they “get to me." Like, “jamming out in the car and having a major, body-rattling chill go down my spine and find myself wishing (just for like, the teensiest, tiniest second) that I was a punky, Avril-ish, 16 year old who could get away with hanging a giant poster of their band on the black walls of my bedroom and go to every concert they put on in the tri-state area” get to me.

But, worry not, I quickly come to the realization (post body chill) that I’m simply not like that at all and that the classical piano version of their music “gets”(to) me even more, and that I’m sorta just nerdy and prissy like that, and that’s okay too. (I guess…)

Be sure and come see me at Jill's Jewelry Fundraiser tomorrow! It's going to be so much fun!!!