and now they are four

there is a lot of excitement today. meet amber and sunshine:

they are really, REALLY excited.
why?
well, aren't you?

the furnish-johns are now four in number!

yay!

amber just couldn't keep from cheering when she heard the news today. she doesn't watch much tv, so she kind of found out while she was on a donut-run. the donuts are near the magazines, so in order to satisfy her fix, she had to see Hello! magazine.

she stopped in her tracks and shouted loudly "GOOOOOO ELTON! (and David)!"

sunshine heard the cheer from the ice cream aisle, and ran over to join the fun.

they are not only huge elton john fans, but huge baby fans, too.

when they were done cheering, a tear came to amber's eye. a little tear of happiness...at the thought of what a lucky boy little elijah would be.

two loving fathers to look after his well-being...

...play baseball with him...(at 70 years of age, elton will still be fit enough to play ball-related sports)

...take him fishing...(septuagenarians LOVE getting up early and sitting out in the cold)

...maybe teach him how to camp...(oh yeah - old people LOVE sleepin' on the ground...again, in the cold. LOVE IT!)

...and of course buy him ANY and EVERY thing his heart desires. (shopping is fantastic at any age)

yes, this baby boy was really lucky.

meanwhile, sunshine reminisced back to her own childhood. her father had taught her how to tie a really good knot. she couldn't imagine what a splendid knot david and elton would teach little elijah to tie.

sunshine's daddy also taught her how to change her oil. only the best oil would be changed at the furnish-john household.

then...sunshine and amber looked at each other suddenly, simultaneously having the same realisation: that kid's 16th birthday party would kick the hiney out of every birthday party in the history of over-the-top parties.

somehow, some way, they just *HAD* to find a way to be there. maybe amber would write that hit song. sunshine decided to take acting lessons and get on a reality tv show.

NO!!! they resolved right then, right there, that they would become the BEST cheerleaders on the planet.

right after they had those donuts.

.................................

later that night, sunshine and amber did some web-surfing, let's say for a homework project. yeah, that's it. what did they find?

according to WIKIPEDIA*...

china has 65,504,000 orphans...

africa has 34,294,000 parentless children...

and latin america and the caribbean have 8,166,000 kids of alternative family status...

so. many. orphans. all jealous of little elijah and his brother zachary.

(*)=up until 11pm at night, i hate the thought of anyone using wikipedia as a source. however. it is after 11pm, and i don't care now.

intermittent fast days, which can be quite slow

fasting. intermittently. that is my new thing. well, it is the new thing i do.

today i started week 3,  and this is what i'm sitting here thinking about:

and this:

and this:

i fast twice a week, once on sunday, once on wednesday. on those days, i keep to 500 calories. that's oatmeal for brunch, and a hearty soup for dinner. i could have a weight watcher's meal or something, but i'm always really disappointed with those. they keep being finished too quickly. somehow.

but not that it's the third week, thankfully, food only occupies my mind as i'm trying to get to sleep. not, like the first day, wherein i thought about food THE ENTIRE DAY.

i'm also starting to look forward to the fasting days.

on friday, i went to my friend's house for the night. we ate pizza. i might have had a fourth piece... while also drinking. but i can do that now, and it's okay! i still drop a pound-or-so a week, and i feel great!

by the time fast day arrives, i'm ready to lay off the food for awhile.

i have traded seven days of torture for two!

however, even though it is getting easier each time i fast, i noticed tonight that EVERYONE on tv was eating. seriously. i watched CSI, they went to a cafe. and ate.

i watched a movie with lovely daughter. there was a lot of eating. really? you're catching bad guys and you need a food scene? ugh.

simpsons...crime dramas...EVEN THE SPORTY THING had food in it - some guy in the crowd eating a burger. HEY CAMERA GUY - WATCH THE GAME!

and then there were the commercials. most of THOSE were for food.

but actually, it didn't bother me that much. i just...noticed it.

and although right now i'm thinking of all the food i CAN eat tomorrow morning...

actually...

i'll probably just eat this:

but, y'know, a BIG bowl!!!

snow makes children stupid

i, zerilda, am shocked.
i am also stunned.

here i am, in the admittedly cold kingdom of united, and was, days ago, made aware of the impending snow. i prepared as much as i thought i should: i got some new gloves. at no point did i prepare for the eventuality of not getting to work, or that my children would be temporarily denied education.

i DIDN'T EVEN BUY A SHOVEL!
so imagine my surprise when i got 4 official school texts (2 for each child!) informing me that school would be closed. they arrived before my consciousness did, which is to say, before my alarm.

i got a little worried.

you see, where i'm from, it SNOWS!!!!! look:

enough snow to make samuel l jackson refer to it with m-f bombs:

a BUTT-LOAD of snow:

yes. i used to live with THAT. THAT's what closes schools where I'M from. we are hardy in america.
see this guy?

he has places to be! a little snow doesn't get in his way! so i took my worried self over to the window to assess the horrors that had befallen us here in britain.

THIS IS WHAT CLOSES SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN:

are you KIDDING ME? 

i went downstairs to watch the news. this was similar to their report (without the arrows...!) :

OH MY BOB!!!

how ever will they get where they're going on those NON-SNOWY roads?

and so it was that my children got a day of sitting around the house, watching tv, playing on the wii, and generally NOT being further educated. they're never IN school!

if MY school had cancelled classes every time we got a tiny smattering of snow, no one in my state would have gotten an education! we'd have never gone to school! we'd all be serving "fries with that!"

i suppose i should cut this country some slack. i grew up where it snowed a lot. i know how to cope. i can competently drive in snow. but i avoid it here, because the locals can't negotiate mildly snowy roads. you only have to say the *word* snow and a car, somewhere in britain, shoots off past breakdown lane...

so i went to work. without taking a shovel to my car. i might have put on the gloves.


and after saying "REALLY?!" repeatedly whilst smacking my forehead, i was told that schools are closed because snow is a health and safety issue.

WHAT?!
SNOW?!

SNOW IS WATER!!! 

i had no idea i grew up in a death trap!!! i feel like i should sue mother nature. i could have been someone great! instead, i was hindered by the snow. snow made me less healthy and less safe. but i'm a survivor!

thank god someone figured out that snow is so deadly, so that the only impact it would have on my children is to inhibit their education. WHEW!

or are they really hiding something more sinister...

american myths exposed #412: all americans love guns

i, zerilda, am highly used to being made to answer for all of the things that happen in america that people outside america think are terrible, or at the very least, bizarre. however, most recently, i am surrounded by people who have kicked it up a notch. and i say to them:

what's more ridiculous - the thing you're questioning or the fact that you think all americans are exactly the same?

one thing i love about this country is that although i have repeatedly busted my eyeball sockets from rolling my eyes so much as a reaction to "all americans yadda yadda yadda" statements, i get free healthcare, so sign me up for more eye-socket surgery! and bring on that free post-op morphine...

eye-rolling statements resulting in said surgery:

all americans eat oversize cheeseburgers

all americans love country music

that's gonna be covered in a different post...

all americans love their guns

it's really surprising to me that i have been lumped into such a category, considering i never even saw a real gun until i was 14. that's amazing, considering:

i'm from a large, rectangle-shaped, western state...

my father was in the military...

my mother's second husband was a policeman...

but no, what my coworkers expect is that i am a little disgruntled because i got my guns taken (read: pried) off me when i landed at heathrow. they eventually find out i'm from a big, rectangle, western state, which convinces them that they should lock up their pets in the fall because i'm a'comin' with ma' shotgun and i gots to get some dinner!

now, whereas it is true that i descend from a long line of highly competent gun-toters, most notably my mother,

who could hit the back side of a prairie dog (not a pet) from a distance of 90 paces,

i personally suffered great shame and disgrace as a non-gun-toting future liberal.

additionally, i didn't realize until i was 20 that our dog was named after a specific type of gun. i just thought 'ruger' was my mother not knowing how to spell 'roger', but it was okay because the dog didn't really look like a 'roger'.

a further irony of our household was that although my parents are both extremely good shots, we were not even allowed to say the word "gun" in our house. we could call the dog, "c'm'ere, ruger," but we could not say "gosh, i'd really like a ruger for christmas," without being sent to our rooms for a week. we couldn't even say "i'll be a son of a gun," as a surprised reaction to something.

i am probably the only person from my home state who has never been on a hunting trip. i always got slightly nervous during "school hunting break" because i thought that if the school *knew* i hadn't gone hunting like everyone else, i'd get detention.

when i arrived in the uk, i first went to belfast. if i, like "all the gun-toting-americans," would have been exposed to even the smallest gun, i wouldn't have consistently soiled my pants when i walked through the streets, which, at the time, were patrolled with land-rovers pointing guns from the top.

but hey ho, i'm american, so of course, in the eyes of most people around me, i support the NRA, and i must also only like a movie if there is a relatively large death count in it.

but the truth is, i did not personally touch a gun until i was 42... in WALES.

a quick google search gives me the statistic that 47% of american households have guns. wow. less than half. admittedly a lot, however, in order for "all americans to love guns," shouldn't all americans *own* guns? they don't all own guns, ergo, they don't all love them. in FACT, quite a lot of us are opponents of gun ownership.

but please! by all means! keep trying to convince me how we americans are stupid for not properly regulating guns. it's so much fun for me to listen to. and in the back of my head, i will simultaneously continue to ponder the ridiculousness of a country the size of britain trying to instruct a country the size of america in oh, anything. what works for a country of 243,600 km² will surely work for a country of 9,827,000 km², right?!

AND ANOTHER THING - mr. tarantino, aka "i'm a massive jerk who doesn't realize that i'm making so much insanely ridiculous money that i should be fricking patient during an interview with a guy representing the common movie patron...viewers who are *paying* (lots) to get into my movies," if you think you have a hard life because said interviewer wants to ask you a seemingly tedious question about your violent, gun-containing movie in the wake of a massive gun-related tragedy, please s/t/f/u, some of us have to answer for it every/stupid/day. i must go rest my eyes now, before another day of extensive eye-rolling begins.