1) Frank McCourt

2) Max Cavalera

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As you may or may not know, Jani Lane was found dead in a hotel in Los Angeles last night. At the time I am typing this the cause of death is unknown.

What you probably don’t know (unless you are Tammy, Ritch or someone that brings up Warrant a lot in casual conversation) is that back in the 90s Jani Lane used to have a club in Orlando called Jani Lane’s Sunset Strip. It opened in 1994 and in they had a fabulous Friday happy hour.

I don’t remember the exact deal – maybe $1 domestics or something but between that, decent music and the fact that in the summer of 1995 I was only taking two classes and had a lot of free time, we spent a lot of Fridays in downtown Orlando.

One night, it was particularly crowded. We had been there for a while and we were standing at a high top. Tammy said “This place needs barstools.”

“The next time I see Jani Lane I will complain about this!” I announced.

This was hilarious. We had been going to this bar once a week for three months and Jani Lane had never been in there. That is like expecting to see Don Shula in a Shula’s or Wendy at Wendy’s.

We had seen Nicko McBrain in there but I think he actually had a house in Orlando and taught local drum clinics.

Yet! An hour later, there he was. The man himself, Jani Lane.

I made as if to approach Mr. Lane then I turned to Tammy and said “What was I going to ask him?”

“You were going to demand more barstools.”

I blinked and thought about it for a minute. I pictured myself walking up to Jani (who has collected a sort of crowd that was following him around the club) and shouting “Get thee to a barstoolery!” It was so absurd that I started laughing so hard I could barely breathe. By the time I collected my wits he was gone. He was probably in the VIP lounge or something and in 1995 it didn’t seem that pressing to introduce myself to an ex-rock star.

Now that I am older and wiser and slightly less prone to hysteria, I will always approach someone who is interesting. Why squander an opportunity like that? It might not have changed my life in any way, but it would have been nice to say “I met him once” and every celebrity you meet makes the Kevin Bacon game easier.

Jani Lane may have had his issues, but he left behind a family and I am very sorry for their loss.

I actually kind of hate this song, but it seems fitting.

When my twins were two years old we got their very first school pictures from preschool. Both sets came back just adorable. Claudia had on a little pink and red dress and Ian was wearing a green striped sweater that made him look like a big kid. I gave one picture of each child to each set of grandparents and then I promptly lost the rest of them. Deep down inside I believed that we somehow managed to accidentally throw them away, and I have been secretly devastated for about two years.

It was almost as bad as when I lost a full 8G memory card during my sister-in-law’s wedding.

Well, I’ve been looking for their new school pictures. You see, they made thank you cards for their Great-Grandmother for their Christmas gifts (Shut it. Yes, I know it is late February, but I usually forget all together so this is a good thing for me.) and I really wanted to send her the school photos with the thank you cards.

But I just can’t find them, and I’ve been looking for a week.

Fortunately, this year I scanned the school pictures. I bought the CD too. I learned my lesson, and while I may have to make copies for myself and the relatives at least they aren’t lost forever.

Today I was in my filing cabinet – again – looking for the elusive “School Pictures” folder. These pictures have vanished. They aren’t anywhere. I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind when I spotted a manilla folder in the bottom of the drawer.

You know what was in it?

I have been racking my brain to think of something I can ask for that isn’t either insanely expensive or something that I don’t really want but seems like an appropriate request.

Yesterday it became very apparent what I wanted for my birthday.

Stupid floor.

Gardening for Dummies indeed.

My stomach was cramping so badly that I was convinced that Vicky was having her baby.

I reasoned that she and I had bonded so deeply when we roomed together at BlogHer that I could feel her labor pains.

I don’t know. It seemed feasible at 3:30 in the morning.

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When I woke up the fist thing I did was check facebook to see a picture of the baby.

There were no photos.

So I e-mailed Vicky.

There was no labor. No  baby yet. She slept through the night.

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It must have been the entire sleeve of Pringles I ate yesterday.

I have got to stop doing that.

Second of all, her dumb movie made me cry on the airplane.

Twice.

And I was sitting next to a 14 year old boy who probably thinks I am the biggest loser that ever lived.

Hmph.

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Monday: Go to New York for the Work Life Legacy Award Ceremony

You know, to award people with excellent life/work balance skills.

Yes universe, I finally get what you are throwing my way. I cannot do everything. I get it. It took me a while, but I finally understand. I am not happy about it. I want to do everything. I feel like I should do everything. Most days I feel like everybody needs me to do everything.

So today I go down my schedule and cancel the things that I cannot do and then take care of the things that I need to get done.

And when my kids get home from school I will play with them.

And when my husband gets home from work the family will go out to dinner and I will apologize to all of them for being such a crazy person.

I will work on managing my time better.

I will work on being there for my family instead of for everybody else.

I will find my work/life balance and I will go to that ceremony a different year, when I have earned the right to be there.

And everything is going to be okay.

Please go check out the Families and Work Institute website. I ditched them at the last minute and they are an amazing organization that is trying to help families all over the United States. Also take a look at Ellen Galinsky’s “Mind In the Making” project. It is a really fascinating multimedia project about young people and learning.

Nobody paid me or even asked me to say any of that. It is of my personal opinion that these are worthwhile causes and websites.

I guess “Yelled at me” sounds like “Amy” if you are an iPhone.

So, Amy, I am sorry. I wasn’t prank calling you. I’m just really, really stupid.

And to you – mean lady at Whole Foods –  if you didn’t want to know that I couldn’t find cilantro why did you ask me if I found everything okay in the first place?

For Melissa, Lori, Elisa and Loralee it was the Mathias “Let the People Praise Thee, O God”, the piece that he wrote for Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding.

For everybody else it sounds like this.

I’m a first alto and the the alto line looks like this

and this

If you are a vocalist you are cringing. If you are an instrumentalist you are wondering what my deal is. If you can’t read music you stopped reading this post five minutes ago.

Before we moved on to the next piece the director asked if we had any questions.

I turned to the lady on my right. I said “Yeah, can we sing something else?”

No response.

I turned to the girl on my left and I said “Yeah, I have a question. What the hell Mathias?”

She looked at me like I had several heads.

I am so glad I have you guys.