Joshua Tree and Christmas nostalgias

No one is blogging, everyone is gone and it is almost time for us to jump in the car and bust on out of this joint. But I can't check off my entire "get ready to leave" checklist unless I post one more time. Quick summary: The restoration company is going to tear into our house and start stitching it up again tomorrow. So naturally, we are going to leave tomorrow and go hang out in St. George until the BYU game on Sat. Then we'll be up in Utah on Sunday. Adam-home and done with one quarter of school. Eli-fighting the eternal teething battle that never actually yields any teeth. I think he is doomed to remain toothless and cranky forever. Duane-ecstatic to see Steve and balance pepperonies on his nose. Me-happy to leave the California rain for Utah snow and then Hawaiian sun. Wahoo.
We have loved having this week to hang out, wrap up loose ends, Christmas shop (actually, that's a lie. Christmas shopping was miserable. I don't know who behaved more poorly between Adam and Eli.) Yesterday we went to Joshua Tree to do some outdooring. It was cool. We were hard core hiking with the jog stroller...it really wasn't that hard core, but E was like little Prince Eli Ababua as we lifted his stroller up and over the rock stairs. Good times.

I have missed being in Utah for the beginning of December. I think the thing I miss very most is making fun of Christmas cards. We are not nearly popular enough to get the plethora of Christmas cards required for this, my favorite holiday festivity. I have a total of two, and neither one has anything tacky enough to criticize. No spelling errors, bad pictures, obnoxious bragging, bad sentence structure or hideous corny Christmas designs. Disclaimer: none of you reading this blog entry have ever sent a Christmas card which I have deemed ridicule worthy. And I also really enjoy reading the good ones too. No, sadly, I have missed out on that splendid splendor of the merry season. I will just have to catch up this weekend at our parents' houses. I think I went to my mom's house nearly every single day of December last year just to see if any more Christmas cards had come. I love it. I miss snowboarding too. I only went once last year because of my delicate condition so it has been entirely too long. I miss the cold. I mean real sweater and boots cold. It is chilly here, but only obnoxiously so. I miss running in the crunchy snow. I miss things being forced to slow down because of wicked blizzard weather. And I obviously miss family. See you all on Sunday.

Idiocy and Incompetence part two

It goes on. I went to my first HOA meeting for my association last week to make sure that all of the damages done to my house due to their negligence would be covered. Turns out that flat roofs tend to pool water, create holes, break through the ceiling and frequently cause collateral damage throughout the house. Imagine that. So we are not the only ones in the Orange Tree Villas who have experienced the wrath that mother nature naturally wreaks on flat surfaces that are supposed to magically rid themselves of water. As a side note, we are, however, the first to pick the oranges off of the orange trees that grow at the Orange Tree Villas. Amidst all of the bad news presented at the meeting, the flustered president asked if anyone had any good news to report. Adam raised his hand confidently to comment on the tastiness of the newly orange oranges, but recoiled when he received the look of death from nearly all of the nearly dead 90 year olds in the room. Anyway, they are really good. We'll bring all you Utahns some next week.
So, after that, Adam explained that we tried to contact them for four months to fix the hole in the roof and they politely ignored it by telling us they were still reviewing the problem. It was a pretty cut and dry their-fault deal. So they sent someone out to replace our whole roof (the aforementioned flat part that for some odd reason does not rid itself of water) on Thursday and Friday and we are getting an estimate to fix everything else-walls, ceilings, floors, etc.-tomorrow. Good deal, case closed, end of story....but wait. Funny thing is, while they were fixing the roof, the workers were sweeping gravel off the top of it-AND INTO OUR FREAKING DUCTS. So guess what doesn't work now? Our brand new furnace that we just barely replaced in August? Good job. So what have we learned here:1-Flat roofs not good for allowing water to run off; create holes and water damage. Expensive and pain in the butt to fix. 2-sweeping rocks, debris and gravel into your ducts is not good for your brand new furnace that was also a pain in the butt and expensive to fix.

SO needless to say, we all huddle around the fireplace and hope that E wakes up in the morning...it only gets down to like 55 in our house, but still. When you have a baby, you'd prefer not to be without heat in the winter. Fortunately, we live in California and it's not terribly cold but honestly. This is a joke. I mean, it's not, all of the above is true, I assure you, but I just keep thinking that the next person who is responsible for fixing something on my house is going to be smart enough to not cause major damage to another perfectly working part of the house. So far, I have been less than impressed. To recap: Oranges-orange; Roof-Fixed; Furnace-broken. Maybe next time the idiot who is supposedly supposed to fix something will at least let me choose what he is going to destroy in the process. I would choose my countertops. At least those are old and gross and need to be replaced anyway. I mean, let's at least start being efficient about it.
PS- I am an idiot too. I accidentally enabled comment moderation and thought that no one was commenting on Adam's debut post. I couldn't figure it out. I thought I was the only one with a sense of humor for a minute.
Double PS-If you were wondering (Michelle) from where the inspiration came for Adam's little blogdor charicature, its a StrongBad cartoon. His name is actually Trogdor and it's hilarious if you've never seen it. Go here:http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html

Adam makes a guest appearance on my blog...

I think Adam's brain short circuited late last night. After about twelve hours of straight studying, he started hammering away on the computer. At first I thought he was writing me a love letter because he was smiling and laughing and would not let me read it. But the result, found in the preceeding post, was even better. Go Duncan Hunter.

Blogdor the Bloginator and its Presidential Predictions

Blogdor is Ashley's devil-on-shoulder, her Id, her blogbido, if you will. Blogdor the Bloginator, in its grand entry into the blogosphere, will tell you all what Ashley is really thinking. And who knows, you might find that you have all been unknowingly bloginated.

Presidential candidate, shmresidential shmandidate. Who cares! Blogdor doesn't. Why? Because they have already been chosen. It's all in the last name. It doesn't matter what the platforms are, and who has a better health insurance plan, and who is going to let more legally illegal undocumented migrant hard working lazy felon angel anchor dropping alien immigrant hispanic-meso-northish-sometimes-central american (If you believe Vespucci even really made a map of a new world discovered by a Christopher Columbus. You idiot it was discovered by the Vikings, Global Warming is my mom, free love for anything and everything, liberal hippy tree hugger awesomosity!)homo sapien human translocatee than the next guy. (P.S. Blogdor is unbounded by grammatical weaknesses.) Nope! It's all about who has the most presidential last name. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy, Carter, Nixon, Harding, Wilson, Monroe, Madison, Lincoln...need I say more. They all had really good, solid last names. What about Eisenhower and Roosevelt!? you may ask. Well, they were elected when people named Elmer, Doris, Gretchen, and Wilford voted. So cut them some slack. This means that in the future we may get a DuRayel Johnstoniux, but not for 10 or 15 more years. By and large, Presidents have great last names. So lets see.

On the republican side we have Rudy Guliani. Julia Gulia?!? enough said. Mike Huckabee. "And now Hanna-Barbera presents the President of the United States of America, Mike Huckelberry Hound, er, uh, Huckabee." Didn't Huckabee write an apocryphal gospel? And, I think Huckabee is a swear word in Japan. Cameron told me so. Not to mention if you change one letter its a really bad word in English. John McCain. No thanks, I wasn't born in Scotland, or Ireland or any other McCountry that might McMake up prefixes for their McSurnames. How about Duncan Hunter. Little known Duncan Hunter. Hunter? Yeah, he'll be the nominee. I mean, with a name like Hunter. How does "I'll 'Hunt' your terrorist ass right into that cave and rip you out like a helpless field mouse" sound for a campaign slogan! He's got my vote. Ron Paul. Hey, he has two first names. Which one is it Mr. Ron, or Mr. Paul, or Mr. RonPaul. President RonPaul what do you think about Iran's Revolutionary Guard blowing up our soldiers? Oh yeah, you can't make up your mind about anything, not even your first and/or last name! And Tom Tancredo. Jumpin' Jehosaphat and tell Toledo that Tom Tancredo is getting vetoed, from my list anyway. Mitt Romney. Well, the last name works. My qualm is with his first name. George, Bill, John, Richard. Now those are some good names. Mitt? Baseball mitt. Oven mitt? Is that short for Mittany, or Emmitt. Did I make a mittstake? No, sadly it's just Mitt. Down the drain for Mitt.

And now on to those wacky Democrats. Joe Biden. Senator Biden has a nice ring to it. President Biden. President Bin Laden? I mean, it's two letters, but it's close enough that he can't win. Moving on to good old Rodzilla. Here is where my machismo kicks in. A) she's a chick. People say in CNN polls that say 74% say they "Would love to have a female president more than a female mother (+/- 74% margin of error)." B) Well, they're all liars. In the secret catacombs of the voting booth, no one will vote for a chick. Especially not Rodzilla. She's like a chick-dude wannabe. But her last name is pretty good. Chris Dodd. Nope, it's too short, and it's not a noun (especially not one with such biblical references like a burning Bush). John Edwards. Yep. That's it. He'll be the Democratic Nominee. You just can't beat his name. But wait, what about Mike Gravel. Who the heck is Mike Gravel? Does he realize his last name is a synonym with a smattering of tiny rocks. And where did that last name come from? The 15th century gravelsmith? Please. Barack Hussein Obama. Sadly when we all hear this name we think of bIraq Sadam Hussein nuclear oBomba. It's not your color homey, it's your unfortunate name. And last but not least. Dennis Kucinich. Who do we all think of when we hear that name. That's right, Dennis the Menace, cooking spinach in the kitchen. With a little tangential thievery, he should steal other closely associated names to his such as Mr. Wilson, and Popeye. President Popeye Wilson. Now that sounds like a winner.

Alright, Superego is telling me to quit while I'm ahead. Duncan Hunter '08.

Way to go Mitt

Redeemed! No pun intended. At least from the last debate, anyway. If Mitt wins, it may well be because of this speech he made today. All of you, go watch or listen to Mitt Romney's speech right now. It was very nearly impeccable. The people who would persist in antagonizing him, and all Mormons really, didn't like it. But they are in the great minority. And they would have had him simply expose all of the nitty gritty details of our peculiarness with neither a regard for it's sacred nature, nor an ability to understand through any measure of faith. He didn't do that because he possesses more than a drop of integrity, unlike all of the other sell outs' crap I keep reading. You can read his speech here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22132576/

Also, the following were excellent articles about "us"...to my knowledge, there are few regular readers of my blog who are NOT LDS, so if you feel excluded by that statement, my deepest apologies. I wish there were more of you who are not members of my church visiting my blog. Anyway, these articles were so refreshing. I have read so much smut about Mormons lately from people who spread and continue to circulate misinformation. I am surprised I still have a testimony. Seriously, if you want to know about our faith, ask someone who knows. These guys know. I know! If you care what religion your president is (you shouldn't) then do some real research about his particular religion. Ask someone who is a practicing member for crying out loud. The LDS faith is not running for president, Mitt Romney is. It is not his job to stand up and outline the particulars of the church he attends. So if you are not Mormon and are for some reason reading my blog, and you think that the specifics of Romney's religion have anything to do with whether or not he would make a good president, (first of all, you are wrong. They don't. The type of underwear he sports has nothing to do with whether or not our troops stay or leave Iraq. Really...) then ask me or someone who knows. Or read these:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119698509824016464.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://ktarpd.typepad.com/memo_to_management/2007/12/today-a-mormon.html?referer=sphere_related_content

Being Single

I saw Adam for a few hours last week at a Christmas party with friends. Here are a couple of pictures that someone (Ali) miraculously managed to capture. He was upset with me for not stealing back a white elephant gift I received-a four year old's toy called Spywear. Apparently when you fry your brain studying Biochemistry all day, you require a therapeutic toy to help you unwind. I didn't realize how important it was. Adam now has a new wife: her name is dental school. If only I had stolen that toy for him like he asked me to.


I'm exaggerating. What else is new? It's not that bad. He is actually home a lot, just preoccupied. Instead of playing with spywear, he plays with E...and unwinds by giving him a loaf of cornbread to devour, which Eli obviously did very willingly.

So I guess we are remodeling...

This is what happens when you have a hole in your roof, the HOA insurance puts off fixing it for three months, and then it rains six inches in one day. And then there is Duane enjoying himself by the fire through it all. Idiots. I repeat- Idiots.