This is not a Love Song

Last night the hubby and I went out on the town. We headed over to the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac to see Public Image Limited (PiL). As a band PiL had moderate pop/rock success through the 80s. Their biggest song in the UK is the semi-disco song, "This is not a Love Song". Their biggest hit in the States was the Rock song "Rise". Nathan says they are the greatest most prolific band you have never heard of. I bet none of these things help you know who they are. Most people know the band because of the lead singer. The lead singer is John Lydon. John Lydon is more famously known as the crazy eyed Johnny Rotten from the influential British punk rock band, "The Sex Pistols." I first heard of the Sex Pistols in the early 80s in the church children's choir. No, we didn't perform an adorable rendition of "Anarchy in the UK," but one of the older kids did write the band name in permanent marker on one of the tambourines.

We got to the ballroom a little early and stood in line behind a couple of youngsters (definitely under 21). Most of the crowd was quite a bit older than us, but we managed to find the two youngsters who loved vinyl and old music. One might think that we would get along great with our line buddies, since the hubby and I sort of fit into this category. It isn't like we were rocking out to PiL in elementary school. However, we don't like other people who think they are as cool as us or cooler. It did help that they were super easy to trick. Some of the people waiting in line, decided to wait in the bar attached to the ballroom. The boys couldn't get in. They were obsessed with the idea that those people were going to get in first. I had a wonderful time looking in the window and telling the boys that they were letting some people in while we were still standing in the cold. I also found a guy in the crowd who looked the part of a PiL band member. I insisted that he was in the band and we were definitely keeping track of his whereabouts. These little boys kept name dropping all the people they had seen in concert. "Oh, when I saw Lou Reed...", "Oh when I saw the Sugar Cubes...", "Oh, that guy is wearing a Devo t-shirt, we should get into Devo, we should get into Devo before Dave gets into Devo..." (for the record, Nathan and I are already into Devo) were all things they discussed. When a guy taking a survey asked them how they listen to music, they said they only listen to Vinyl. How hipster of them. I have plenty of records, but you can't listen to them in a car. That is why the world has moved on to other ways of recording music. They also were hoping that they would get spitted on by their hero.

The ballroom was a lovely place to see a show. They have a balcony with lovely tables and chairs. We nabbed chairs and had a great view. John claimed in an interview that he now sounds like a bag of kittens being thrown down the stairs. Despite that, he did a wonderful job and put on quite a show. He was a little paranoid though. He seemed to be super worried that the fans would try to get on the stage. Was he worried because he was in "Detroit" and we have a bad reputation? Was he worried that because of his Punk Rock past kids would come up and try to spit on him? Nathan seems to think it is a British thing. He brings his own security in the form of an old friend who happens to be a Soccer Hooligan (they call him John Rambo). During one of the last songs, the lead singer freaked out about one of the other security guards leaning on the stage. Because of this all the guards left and it was up to the hooligan to keep the few overzealous fans off the stage. If you are super interested, that clip from the concert made it online.

Overall, it was a lovely night on the town. What was the last concert you went to? How did it go? Children Choir Directors, what songs do you think would be funny to have the kids sing if it wasn't so inappropriate?


Compliments of the PiL Website.

Charlie is...a punk rocker...

What an adventure in uncleanliness today has been.

It started when I picked Charles up from Daycare. All the kids got together and painted a washer box and a dryer box. They did a great job, and even though Charles was covered in paint, it was adorable. He did a super excellent job of turning himself into a punk rocker. Charles kind of looks like Johnny Rotten anyway, but today he was extra punk with green and purple splotches added to his lovely locks. Ms. Connie, the daycare owner, apologized for what a mess Charles was, but I didn't really mind.

All the way home from daycare Charles was asking for cake. I new we didn't have any cake at home, so when we pulled into the driveway at the same time as Nathan, I suggested that we go out to dinner. I didn't want to disappoint Charles so of course we had to get a cookie sundae to split between the three of us. Normally Charles lets us feed him stuff like that, but not today. Today he wanted to do it himself. This meant that the little fella was covered in ice cream and chocolate syrup. When we got home, I knew he needed a bath.

Charles loves baths, so we headed up. He really wanted to sit on the potty, I let him but nothing happened. Nothing happened until he got into the bathtub and was in the middle of playing. I have fallen in love with Clorox disinfectant wipes, and I was using them to clean the rest of the bathroom while Charles was in the bathtub. This came to an abrupt stop when Charles had "That look" on his face. Just as I was asking him if he had to go potty, a giant log of poop appeared in the bathtub. It wasn't a little baby poop. It was a man poop. I quickly yanked Charles out of the tub and called for Nathan. Of course, Charles's hair had just been sudsed up with shampoo.

I asked Nathan to take Charles into his shower to rinse off. Charles refused to go with him. Instead he decided to pee all over the floor...three times.

Finally, when I agreed to go with him, Charles went into the "man shower." I thought that nothing could be grosser than a bathtub with a huge log of poo in it. I was wrong. The man shower, and the man bathroom in general, is much grosser than the poop bathtub. Of course, Charles loved being in the man filth. I cleaned him up as quickly as possible and sent him down to daddy with his jammies.

I finally attacked both bathrooms with cleaning products. The bathtub got filled with bleach water. Bath toys have been thrown away. I disinfected the entire bathroom floor. I hosed down the man shower with some really toxic smelling chemicals. As of right now, they are all soaking. I will attack again tomorrow after more cleaning products are purchased. I guess maybe the man bathroom has to be cleaned more than once a year. GEESH! COME ON!

Eyjafjallajokull - all my fault.

Sorry Europe, the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano is all my fault. I didn't know when I first heard about it, but now I realize that it was divine providence.

This weekend we attended the baptism of my nephew, baby Tony. Baby Tony lives in Rhode Island with his parents Jason and Gina. It takes about 13 hours to drive to Rhode Island. When we were invited to the baptism, for some reason we decided to go. It was a crazy idea. Who drives 13 hours each way for a baptism? It was all part of the divine plan.

We drove through the night so Charles would sleep, it was pretty uneventful, but we did stop at every rest area we saw towards the end of the trip. When we got to Rhode Island, Grandpa and Grandma took Charles to go play with his cousins Dominick and Tony. The picture below is the only one I could get with all of them in it. They played together really well, they just refused to sit together to get their picture taken.


Nathan and I rested for a bit and then joined everyone for lunch and then watched the kids play at Jason and Gina's house. At one point my whole family was zonked out on Jason and Gina's couch.

The baptism was Sunday and it was beautiful, oh and I am baby Tony's Godmother. Ok, officially I am his Christian Witness because I am not Catholic, but I prefer the sound of Godmother. That is where the Divine Intervention came into play. Gina's sister Linda was originally scheduled to be little Tony's Godmother, but God thought that was a terrible idea and caused the volcano to erupt so she wouldn't be able to fly into town, therefore I would be the Godmother. God works in mysterious ways. Some might call me the substitute Godmother, but I prefer New Godmother or the Godmother of Destiny.

The picture below is of me and my new Godson. I had to have Nathan take a picture of just the two of us during the baptism party because he left me out of all of the official baptism pictures he took.


See, here is a lovely picture of the actual Baptism. You can see the Deacon, the mother, baby Tony, the father, the Godfather, but where is the Godmother? Maybe her husband cut her out of the picture.


Luckily Charles was very well behaved during the actual baptism. He was intrigued by a pigeon that was trapped in the church. He was not a good boy during the actual Mass before hand. We were sitting in the front of the church and he kept trying to make a break for the alter. I know Jesus said to let the children come to him, but I am not sure the priest would have enjoyed holding Charles while he spoke.

While we were in Rhode Island we had a wonderful time playing with Charles's cousins. Dominick loves playing the guitar and singing. He is going to be quite the rock star because he loves to perform. He also loves to get his picture taken.


Little Tony and Nathan also became quite close.


We did have a wonderful time for the short two days we were there. We drove back Sunday night. All weekend Charles cried when he had to get into our car because his Grandpa's car has a TV in it. We had a surprise of our own. We brought a little DVD player with us and we let him watch movies on the way home. He was in all his glory because it was close enough to him that he could manage all of the controls. I repeated the movie several times, but also skipped through the parts he didn't like.

We got home early this morning and had to drive through the Detroit rush hour. Nathan was amazing. I was in and out of consciousness for the last 3 hours, but he was a trooper and managed to get us home safely. I was so happy to have the day off today. Even with the day off, I took Charles to daycare. He didn't seem to understand why Mommy wanted to sleep instead of play.

Overall, the trip was a success. Also, "In your face Andrew, you are not the only person who can have two Godchildren!"

Bunnyville? Should be sucksville!

Last weekend, Easter weekend, the Detroit zoo had record setting attendance. Good Friday set a new record and even Saturday with rainy weather beat the previous record. Sure the weather was great, but I think the reason they had such great attendance was bunnyville. The zoo had planned and advertised all sorts of bunny related festivities. The one that really peaked my interest was "hundreds of bunnies" available for petting.

I am never one to try to attend the hot event of the season. I hate crowds. However, I love bunnies. I had images in my mind of Charles and I cuddling with bunnies and baby chicks. Charles would love them. I would get a ton of adorable pictures of him with little woodland creatures.

My friend Nikki and I took our boys to see bunnyville, Carter and Charles. There was a huge crowd trying to get into the zoo. Charles and I were very lucky. My friend Dale is a member of the zoo, and he met us there and got us in for free and we didn't even have to pay for parking. I was so excited to see the bunnies. That was the only thing on my mind. We bypassed a lot of regular zoo exhibits in pursuit of the bunnies.

Turns out, THERE WERE NO BUNNIES! Hundreds of bunnies were advertised. 25-30 bunnies were brought in. The bunnies had e-coli and the zoo had to get rid of them. I am not sure how a bunny e-coli experience would work. Did the bunnies have the runs? That would be messy even with only a few bunnies. Do they spread e-coli through their bunny droppings? Would the kids have to lick the bunnies? Anyway, there were no bunnies, and there were no animals at the zoo for us to pet at all. Perhaps they all had e-coli.

So, I hereby, call out the Detroit Zoo. Bunnyville was sucksville. Also, they didn't even have the train running on the biggest zoo day ever.

Despite visiting sucksville, everyone had a really good time. The boys enjoyed running around and playing on the playground. They made the most of the fountains and even just the drinking fountain. I was a mess all day from allergies, but it was still a blast to see the boys having so much fun.

Finally, right before the rain came, we headed out. We were completely exhausted. Nikki and Carter got Charles the most adorable stuffed orange penguin to remember his trip. As we walked out of the zoo, "uppy,"Charles said, asking me to pick him up. As I lifted him up, he launched his penguin over the fence into one of the exhibits. Did he want to see the penguin fly, or did he want to set it free? Charles either doesn't understand penguins or zoos. If it had been up to me I would have left the zoo without the stuffed penguin to teach Charles a lesson. The lady behind me didn't think that was an important lesson. She felt bad for Charles and dragged us back to the zoo greeter to see if he could let us into the enclosure to get the penguin. He took us to another person who led us to another person. Luckily, no one let us into the enclosure, but they did get Charles a new penguin. I wouldn't let Charles hold this new penguin.

The boys found the mister/drinking fountain. They loved it. Charles thought the drinking fountain was the best part.


One of the perks was getting bunny faces painted on the kids. I thought that Charles might throw a fit about it, but it turns out he loved it. It was really quite adorable.


There was a huge playground in the middle of the zoo. It was for ages five and up. Carter and Charles paid no attention to that. They LOVED it.


There was a little fountain just outside the penguin exhibit. I think that Charles thought that was why we went there. He thought it was great and the boys enjoyed splashing each other.

So, listen here Detroit Zoo. Sure we had fun, even without your bunnies, but you better straighten up. Next time we might find another zoo.