A Good Hair Day

Haircut night. I'm showing the back of my head because haircut night is the ONLY time the back actually gets blowed dry like this. After almost 40 years of blow drying I still only really do the front and sides leaving the back to dry willy nilly since I can't see nor reach it. So I hope you are all enjoying the back of my head looking fabulous for once.

The person house sitting for Laura actually works at my hair salon - Jill. When I first heard this I had visions of beauty nights on Atwood - for some reason my day dreams had us both in long flannel nightgowns with rag curlers - but in the end, Jill and I have only met twice in all the weeks that Laura and Jim have been gone. (One was this weekend when Bill and I woke her up on Saturday morning by going into the house to give the cat a pill only to find out that its this coming weekend she is going away. Oops!)

Fast forward to Interlocks salon where I am furtively glancing at all the young girls with large hooters (a distinguishing characteristic) trying to figure out which one is her. As I'm checking out, she comes over to me to apologize for not recognizing me sooner....turns out the girl who washed my hair is Jill!!!! We both were doing the "Is this my neighbor? She isn't recognizing me so maybe it isn't" rationalization. Which actually feeds into one of my other anxieties - not recognizing someone I should recognize. We were gushing all over each other with apologies but something tells me that there are no rag curlers in my immediate future.

Fighting for my Sink Series

Whenever I have to take the daily photo and there really isn't an event to capture I resort to an old standby - The Sink Series. Jen used to give me a hard time about taking pictures of the sink, but now I think she likes the irreverence of it, the randomness.

Speaking of sinks, I want to talk about the movie "The Fighter".

I work with the daughter of Dickie Eklund. Dickie Eklund is the Lowell fighter - turned drug addict that Christian Bale plays in the movie. He's the step brother of Micky Ward, the local fighter who won the title in 2000. Ward is played by Mark Walberg in the movie. Eklund is famous for being the first to knock down Sugar Ray Leonard. His daughter, Kerry, said it was hard to relive her father's crack addiction and prison history. But, she said, hanging in Hollywood with Bale and Walberg at the premiere of the movie was cool.

She said her father was pretty oblivious to the stars and was creeped out about Tony Danza hanging around him too much. (Tony Danza only plays roles in which his character is named "Tony". What range.)

Merry Christmas From Albany NY

Bill and I headed to Albany this weekend to celebrate a belated Christmas with the women-folk of the family. Four babalicious generations: from left - Heather, Gina, Lily, Mom (aka Nanny) and Jen

We indulged in one of our favorite traditional Christmas past-times - over reacting to presents. We've really mastered it. Give us crap and we'll act like it's gold. Any votes on who over reacted the best? I tend to enjoy Heather's version of shock and awe.

After presents we enjoyed dinner at the Wine & Diner, a local eatery with gourmet diner food. An excellent choice made by Heather who, going forward, will be in charge of selecting our dining destinations. (If we leave the choice up to Mom we end up at the Chinese buffet eating sterno-warmed lo mein. I have permanently vetoed Chinese buffet!)

At dinner, Bill came up with the idea of putting on a family play. Each of us got to create a character and plot point. Our masterpiece is about a child prodigy artist (Lily) who is exploited by her mother (Heather) until a mysterious woman (Jen) comes to town who is perceived as a bitch but who ultimately saves Lily from her evil family including my evil twin sister (Gina) and an evil paint thinner salesman (Mom). But the twist is that Lily's talent really comes from the ghost of her dead siamese twin that was separated from her at birth and now whispers into her ear how to paint. And the Tony Award goes to....?

We ended our evening with home made twister using magazines...right hand Country Living...left foot In Style....

Sigh, now we are back at home with our wifi (we apologize to our 5 followers for no post last night) with the Boxing Day blues.

Banksy, Billsy and Jensy

We watched Exit Through the Gift Shop tonight - a film by street artist, Banksy. Two of his pieces are above. It inspired us to create our own street art (from the comfort of bed).

We are the artists known as Mr and Mrs Sanchez.

The Circle of Art

I was working at home this afternoon when I glanced out the window and noticed someone in our yard taking pictures of Bill's cairn. My first impulse was the grab the camera and take a picture of him for the blog. This is the circle of art - one artistic creation inspiring another and another...(this only works if you join me in the fantasy that this blog post is an artistic creation.)

A few posts ago Bill segued into his recurring dream story. Is it strange that I do not have one of those universal recurring dreams? Instead I deal with those kinds of irrational fears in my waking hours - my longest running recurring anxiety is showing up to a party on the wrong day or at the wrong address. I can trace this back to about age 6 when my mother was dropping me off for a birthday party and the house looked dark and deserted and I was terrified she was leaving me at the wrong place (she wasn't). And now I think about it EVERY TIME. So the next time you invite me to a party you can be sure that as I come to the door I'm thinking "Is this the right house? What if the party is really next week?"

And in case you are wondering - I have never actually made this mistake so I have no idea why I've been worried about it my whole life. Is this weird? I've got a million of 'em! Maybe I should start an Anxiety-A-Day blog?

Bigger Than a Baby's Arm

Bret and the boys came over to my Mom's for Pizza tonight. They made a fort out of my Mom's table. When I grew up I had a card table that I threw a blue blanket over. I would stay in there and play with my stuffed animals for hours.

Inevitably I had to fold up the table, put away the blanket and animals and head to my class at Salem State.

Good times....

My Mom started to tell an inappropriate story about a former lover, but stopped when we reminded her the kids were listening

Nothing but a dreamer

I had to hustle to get to Joey's basketball tonight. It was a long day at work and each "quick call" ended up being nearer 30 minutes. So I raced for Ipswich knowing I'd miss tip off.

I didn't miss it, though. I saw the tip off .... of the girls game. I got the location wrong. The game was in Georgetown.

It made me think of that reoccurring dream I have where I'm in the hallway at school trying to get to my class where I'm to take a huge test. The hall keeps stretching further out the longer I walk. I get lost. No one will help. I panic, sweat and then wake up.

Dream discussions. I hate talking about dreams. I don't know why, really. I hate books that have dream sequences. I hate television shows that have large chunks that are explained away as a dream (except for the Bob Newhart Show best-ending-of-a-series-ever dream).

At one point in my life I wanted to be a psychologist. I'd be a bad one. A patient would say "I had a dream last night.." and I'd interrupt them and tell them to shut the hell up.

"she dreams in color, she dreams in red" ... lyrics to what song?

A Slow News Day on the J&B Experience....

Jen relished her last day of freedom before going back to the office. Bill had a work outing tonight to the Celtics - which sounds much more photo worthy than my evening at the Screening Room with Christin and yet I was the one on the prowl for a picture. Local celebrity, artist Alan Bill, was working the concession stand tonight so my popcorn was artfully served. As our 5 followers may recall, my trips to the Screening Room are usually accompanied by Laura but she is still on her west coast winter escape. Laura - look at all the fun (and the blog post) you missed!

Review: Tamara Drewe ...B movie, entertaining but nothing special.

We don't say "stupid", M*ther F*cker

There is a running joke at the Byrnes-Kay household that the children need to be reprogrammed after Bill and I leave. Rough housing, burping, and potty humor are all elements that we introduce to their otherwise intellectual Groton home. I thought today would be no different as Bill and I took turns pretending to poop a sweet potato (an oldie but a goodie!) but somehow at the end of the night the boys were given a last minute chance to say all the curse words they know before we departed. Frankly, I'm not sure what even instigated the unique farewell ritual but Thomas took full advantage, weaving a tapestry of obscenity that's still ringing through the neighborhood. And to think Noelle once reprimanded me for using the word 'stupid' in front of these salty-tongued sailors.

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr!

We noticed that in 2010 we didn't post too many pictures of Jen and I together. Unfortunately, the public noticed too. Rumors were swirling about troubles in the relationship. All the tabloids ran with it. US magazine ran a cover with Jen and Owen Wilson coming out of the gym together.

We thought about going on a Barbara Walters Special to talk about how we are each other's soul mates, but we knew we'd just end up laughing at her lisp. We decided to use our extremely popular blog (five, sometimes six sporadic readers) to squelch the tattles.

So, not only is this picture of Jen and I proof that we are deeply in love and each other's best friend ..... Jen wouldn't ever be caught anywhere near a gym. Rumor killed.

Have the best of years everyone. (The title of the blog is Gaelic for Happy New Year)