While We're Apart.

Monday.

My cable modem won't be installed until Monday between 4pm and 6pm. I won't have internet service until next year.

You know what is most amusing about my $5 parking ticket (and yes, I was sitting in the van at the time but I was hiding in the back because I am shamed by this hellish addiction I have to the internet. I could have moved the car, it's true, but I wasn't done yet) at the Brewery yesterday? I could have, I don't know, put a quarter or two into the meter and say, gone inside and had a pint for the same price. What is wrong with me. Oh right, I didn't go in because we had plans and I didn't have time to leisurely drink a pint of beer and check my email at a bar.

We have children who require near constant entertaining. Speaking of entertaining. We took the kids downtown Detroit today to see the Detroit Historical Museum. We spent $6 (including parking) and entertained the children for 3 hours with a small streetscape and huge train exhibit.

Afterwards we drove around Detroit and Detroit, I'm going to try really hard to be nicer to you. I can see you're trying and I'm sorry about all the mean things I've said about you this year. Campus Martius makes me want to ram my tongue down your throat Detroit. It's beautiful and I'm not just saying that.

We're having our first play date since Lice Fest 2004. Madison hasn't played with any of her friends since Tuesday December 14th. There will be Bloody Marys consumed because the moms attending this play group deserve the Bloody Marys as much as I do (and really the only way I'll deserve the Bloody Marys is if I get a certain phone call from a certain person who gives me the best news of my year....a job). Between us we've had pink eye, lice, flu, bronchitis, 15 hours in the ER with a suspected blood clot in a lung all over the last two weeks. Merry Fucking Christmas!

Tonight we're playing euchre, after we played euchre Tuesday night. It was a tournament and I came in third place which was no small feat considering the couple who came in first and second were a)pregnant and so, not drinking and b) REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT CARDS! (Jesus, stress me out.)

Between you and me and everyone else reading this right now my partner, Brett, stole just one deal from Mike because Mike was a little drunk and didn't notice and I wanted to spill it but, you know, it was sort of funny to steal a deal from Mike since he was making fun of me for being a little tipsy and I may have been but no one stole my deals.

Also, I didn't come in last place because I rule the Euchre table.

Finally, something disturbing Logan and I have started to do in bed each night before we go to bed. This is keeping us up for an hour after we crawl into bed and I've come to embrace my extreme nerdiness but this is really pushing it and I won't even try to tell you we're going to stop doing it.

When I told my mom we've been playing Text Twist in bed each night she said, "Oh, is that what you kids are calling it these days?"

I'm writing this at a coffee shop and I guess I thought we all had an understanding about the coffee shop and our laptops. I thought we all agreed to put our games and such on mute so we wouldn't disturb other people in the coffee shop. People who are internet deprived at home and have to drive around like depraved lunatics stealing signals all over Royal Oak.

I'm asking because the entire time I've been typing this I've been hearing the computer sound byte titled 'Tsunami' as someone plays a game nearby. But then, it got worse when they started watching video clips of people screaming and laughing and I'm just wondering when did people get so rude?

I should just pay my $5 parking tickets and hide in the back of my minivan.

Maybe next year I'll try to be more patient.

Wait this is the year of easier resolutions.

Comments

[cursingmama]

Hopefully there won't be any parking tickets this time....if so, I'd head back to the van.

Thinking positive job thoughts - - hope you'll keep us posted even without the internet in your house...

[Jerri Ann]

I sure wish you knew someone at the cable company to help you get hooked up quicker...but hell if you did I wouldn't be sitting here laughing so damn hard...you are a freakin' riot girl!

[Dave]

Melissa,

You sooo crack me up. I have to echo your comments on Campus Martius. I am NOT sticking my tounge down anybodys throat though, even Kwame's. It is a beautiful addition to downtown Detroit. I also believe they have wireless Internet access there. I am pretty sure you can park down there without fear of a parking ticket!

Thanks for all the entertainment in '04, and best wishes for a better '05!

Get that job too!

[jac]

$5 for a parking ticket???! My local council gets over $14 million a year from parking fines (inner city suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Hi! Come visit! But take the tram!)

And also? I give you Fowl Words. It is Text Twist ... WITH CHICKENS.
http://www.kewlbox.com/games/game.cfm?gameId=91

[MamaKaren]

sending you some "no ticket" vibes for your last weekend sans Internet connection.

And, BTW, congrats on being a BOB finalist! Best "Mommy Blog" indeed!

[Pam]

My husband and I also got addicted to Text Twist last year - it became our Friday night "date" entertainment.

We are such nerds.

Shameless confession: I laid in bed last night and played Spider Solitaire on my PDA, and again this morning!

[Richard]

And there's always WEBoggle from http://weboggle.shackworks.com/

[Jenny]

I f-ing love Euchre. Nobody in North Carolina knows the game. I love it. I miss it. I learned another card game the other day and I kept thinking the jacks were higher than all the other trump cards. Yes, I am a Michigan girl at heart. Thanks for the reminder!!

[LargeMarge]

I must say that you are tooo crazy for words...but I love it. However, where the f$*# do you live that parking tickets only cost $5.00?? Is Detroit that far behind the times? Where I live, the fine for not pumping the meter with quarters is $60.00!! And, they'll give you a ticket each hour of the night -- so one night of drinking and forgetfulness can cost you well over $300.00. But, please -- don't ask me how I know that for a fact...

Signed,
Concerned, but guilty, mom in suburban DC

[sara]

Hey, I thought this was the Mom's Club site! Why are you talking about parking tickets?

Euchre is so Michigan. I remember (sort of) many nights of drunken games during my MSU years.

[nicole]

$5?!?! that's not a parking ticket, that's like a parking fee or something. $40 where i live.