sweepin' the clouds away

i have a different ringtone for each of the very special people in my life. eva has the b-52's "the deadbeat club," julie and tim have flight of the conchords' "the humans are dead," mom & dad have "we are family," paul has jimmy buffet's "son of a sailor," and another ex has bright eyes' "first day of my life." danielle has beyonce's "single ladies," jess has a latin beat, and tracy has the sex and the city theme song. michael jackson's "thriller" is reserved for anyone work related. and the sesame street theme song is reserved for when the lowell/poirier household gives me a ring.

when i first showed off my new purple phone to my niece & nephew they were thrilled with the choice of their ringtone and sang along: "sunny days, sweepin' the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet, can you tell me how to get, how to get to sesame street!" now whenever they see my phone, they want to hear the ring.

for christmas i bought the lowell/poirier clan tickets to see sesame street live at the flynn. earlier this week, i caught their party of 5 in the lobby just as they were about to head to their seats. baxter had his ticket in hand and asked me if he had good seats. i assured him that i didn't work at the flynn for nothing, and that yes, he'd be able to see oscar the grouch up close and personal (row 4 -- thanks AJ). the show was full of dancing monsters and silly antics that had the 2-7 year old audience in an uproar. there were phantom fluorescent feet dancing on the black lit stage, and of course, there was cookie monster and elmo, big bird and grover, bert and ernie, and zoe and rosita.

a 7 pm kid show is a late show. to have an intermission at a kids show is cruel and unusual punishment for parents, and this intermission was particularly torturous. just as the curtains closed on act i, two men walked down the aisles carrying huge elmo face balloon bouquets that threatened to sweep the men to the rafters. not only did every child in the theater see these balloons -- every child in the theater wanted one of these $8 balloons! the oh so purposeful light-up twirly elmo hand-held gadgets were in high demand as well. somehow jennie and derek escaped the show with cash firmly in their pockets.

jennie called me later to thank me for the gift and said that the best part of the night was watching paige dancing in her seat, waving and screaming hello to elmo and cookie at the top of her lungs. it brought tears to her eyes, which in turn brought tears to mine.

the next day, a stray elmo balloon and a lost light-up gadget found their way into my office, another perk of my job. later that evening, baxter and paige were momentarily dumbfounded when a big balloon-headed elmo walked into their kitchen singing "la la la la, la la la la, elmo's world" until they realized it was merely their aunt suzie using a balloon for her face. paige's laughter couldn't be contained, and baxter commented on his good fortune that "that kid" lost his light-up toy.

ah, sunny days. those kids sure do chase my clouds away.

on social utilities

i've got writer's block. i've been thinking about this post on social utilities ever since my life turned upside down and inside out because of a blogger.

i tried this last week and it started something like this...

i've gone and dated myself. i haven't posted since last year (why does this joke never get old?) baxter & paige don't get it yet, but that didn't stop them from running to give me a hug and a kiss goodnight since they weren't going to see me till next year (which was the next day).

speaking of jokes, what do you get when you cross a white chicken with a black cow? brown chicken brown cow. say it really fast and it sounds like a bad '70s movie. bax & paige can deliver this one, but they still don't get it. what do you get when you cross a red chicken with a yellow cow? orange chicken orange cow? not quite.

so, social utilities. facebook, gchat, AIM, texting, twitter. i've been thinking about social utilities. and old people. and the way they used to do it in the old days. and about a recent frustrating conversation held between my father, his mother, and me.

me: look, dad, see, i am friends with our cousin, your aunt's grandchild. see, there's your aunt and your cousin, and their kid, and pictures of the race they ran back in september.

dad: oh, yes, i talked to muriel on the phone and heard about that.

g'ma l: wait, what? how do you have terin's computer on your computer? how are you on her computer?

oh boy.

later on my dad reads my blog outloud to my grandmother, not only like she is deaf (ok, she kind of is), but also like she is blind (he describes every picture), a 3-year old, and also an alien who has never visited our land before. well, maybe it sometimes feels that way to her. when i tried to show her how to toggle between 2 pages, she gave up and didn't understand how i was moving the little arrow. it does seem unlikely that running your finger across a flat pad would move an arrow...

this is the same grandma who was tickled to be able to purchase a cute pair of tennis sneakers over the internet. the same grandma who declared "no gifts" for her this past holiday season, which makes it a fun challenge to think of something that she'll actually deem useful and worthwhile. i still feel a personal triumph every time she mentions how much she loves the fleece blanket that i made for her. anyway, that was an aside, but thinking about it, i realize how happy i am that i still get to write "is" statements about my grandma.

someone once warned me that while a 2nd or 3rd life may be lived on the internet, the 1st one still exists. i wanted to heed the advice, i just didn't really understand what it was. i've heard from another person (not julie's ex-boyfriend, the stiff) that blogs are self-indulgent and a blogger's attempt to portray the image of herself that she wants people to see, not necessarily equal to her actual self. and i've heard from yet others that the only way they know what i'm up to is by reading my blog. i am vain enough that although i haven't written in over a month, i still check my blog counter daily. i apologize to those 15 something people who check my blog every day -- even this post is not going to really update you on what's going on with me.

anyway, my thoughts are nowhere near cogent, but what i'm trying to tell my readers is that i feel like a fake, and i've lost my voice, i've lost a friend, and facebook and blogging no longer hold the excitement that they once did.

my blogger boyfriend is now my ex-boyfriend and we aren't facebook friends anymore, nor are we allowed to comment on each other's blogs. i apologize to him and to others for going public on these so-called social utilities. perhaps they should be named social inutilities. communication is best face to face when what is real is right in front of you, not a fairy-tale dream in cyberspace.

see what i mean about writer's block?