Yesterday we had a snow day. And as we shoveled our way out (my student? Never showed up to shovel my driveway again), I thought about places I would like to go on vacation (yes I realize that there will be no vacationing for QUITE awhile) . I thought about all the “biggies” – London, Paris, Tokyo, New York. Then as we thawed out in the livingroom, I put on an episode of Night Court. It was one of the ones where Yakov Smirnoff showed up in the courtroom. And it hit me.

Branson.

What? Yes! Branson, Missouri.

Why did Yakov make me think of Branson? Because somewhere in the corners of my pop-culture-addled brain, I remembered that Yakov has his own theatre in Branson.

There are tons of other shows there, too, from opera to Elvis to horse tricks to Broadway revues. There are theme parks (I might be cheesy, but I love me some theme parks)! Plus, I know people who’ve been there, and apparently? The shopping is amazing. I totally love shopping! Especially when things are on for like, 90% off the regular price!

See, I’m often of two minds about vacations – sometimes I dream of just going to the Dominican Republic and lounging on the beach for three days, and not doing anything but that. Other times I think about how I’d love to have a vacation where there were all kinds of activities all planned out for me, so that I didn’t have to make choices, just go and do things that are set out for me (that’s a function of my ADD – being totally incapable of making decisions).

But anyway. Branson. It’s gonna be on my list (at least until somewhere equally as fantastic, like sayDollywood, comes into play).

I know that most people don’t bother clicking on the YouTube videos that bloggers put up but I entreat you, if you click on one Youtube video this year, let this be the one. Click it. You won’t be sorry.

What are those hats with the propellers on top called? beanies? propeller hats? I need to know. It’s driving me crazy. In one of my breaks from the Dog Whisperer (he also like, pinches the dogs on the neck! and they immediately stop goring the neighbours!) I watched an episode of M*A*S*H and Hawkeye found one and was wearing it and now I’m super curious about what those damn hats are called.

Last night I attended my nephews’ preschool/kindergarten Christmas concert. It was very, very cute (although my youngest nephew – 3 yrs old – got so excited about seeing his parents in the audience that he started bawling… but then forgot to cry because he had to do some type of Christmas Turkey dance). There was a lot of Baby Jesus stuff, which I guess from my years of teaching in public schools I’m not used to at what we term Holiday Concerts, but at a privately-funded preschool is normal, I guess. Plus seeing my five-year-old nephew dressed as Joseph and helping “Mary” (okay five-year-olds having babies is a LEETLE weird, yes) with the Cabbage Patch Jesus was pretty cute and brought back memories of my first-grade concert.

The only bad part of the night was that when I was getting into my parents’ car at the end of the evening, I hit my head, really hard. I’ve had a headache ever since. So bad that I took today off. Tylenol is helping (not enough) and I’m pretty much laying on the couch (3:10 pm and I’m still in my bathrobe!) watching the Dog Whisperer, which is a show I haven’t seen before. You probably all have, in which case I say WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME? It’s awesome! There are dogs that are like, the total hoodlums of the canine world! They smoke crack and talk back to their moms! Then that Cesar dude comes along, makes the dogs run on a treadmill and they turn into angel dogs!
You can gauge my excitement about this from the sheer volume of exclamation points.

I love my husband, dearly. I talk to him about hot dogs and The Monkees and he humours me. I do the same for him. Marriage is very cool.
So when I ask him what he’s reading, and it turns into a 15-minute synopsis of some game called Rolemaster, because of the marriage agreement of not covering our ears and screaming “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” when the other talks, I smile and pretend that I am in some way interested and absorbing the fact that “fighters need to walk around with golf bags full of weapons to use against the different armor types”.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is love in its purest form.

No seriously.

So our (my) lappy was running so super slowly that it was driving me insane. It might be all the crumbs and things that are currently residing in it, I don’t know, but I finally was like “ROB DO SOMETHING”. And he did, Yay Rob! He reinstalled um… windows? Or something? I don’t know which one he installed but it’s installed. And the computer is going SO FAST that I can barely stand it! The only thing is that of course the reinstalling of things wiped out all my saved passwords so it’s going to be an adventure trying to get my brain to hock those back up.
Good morning!