Stuff We've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

Where have we been?  I'm sure you've been on the edge of your seats, awaiting a new post with baited breath.  Here's the stuff we've been doing instead of blogging:

-Eating

     A few weeks ago, we had a Summers family dinner party at Jeff and Julie's in Kuna.  I debuted my culinary "Magnum Opus"- the greatest soup ever made.  I wrote the recipe myself.  I'm not going to tell you what was in it, except that it was chock full of seafood seafood seafood.  Just know that each bite was a party in our mouths that only we were invited to.  I hesitate to call it soup, really.  Liquid happy mystical tastefulness is more like it.  But that takes too long to say. 

-Crashing
     On a more somber note, my mom tried to drive to Boise for Thanksgiving and had a crash.  Actually it was more like a roll.  Several rolls, in fact.  She, Angus, and Pluto (the dog) were all ok, but alas, the car was not.  The car was dead.  RIP car.  We're all thankful that everyone survived.  My mom came out of it looking like a Halloween horror movie costume, but there were no broken bones or head injuries.  Just some blood loss.  Angus said she looked like "Bloody Mary".  I said she looked like she needed a bloody mary. Either that or she was drinking one just before she crashed.  But she swears it was black ice and not a DUI.

-Eating More
     Despite the crashing, the eating continued.  And, more importantly, the PIE MAKING!!  I made pies!  I'm like Betty Crocker, only instead of a housewife, I'm an alcoholic.  Okay, maybe not.  But I did make these pies.  Check them out.  I had to make enough pies for all 12 of the family members eating with us. 

 
I actually took more pictures of pies than people. Come to think of it, I don't think I took any pictures of people. Hey, you gotta have your priorities.

 I made four species of pie- Blackberry, Pumpkin, Crunchy Cream Cheese Pumpkin, and Maple Nutmeg Cream.  I think the Blackberry was the most popular.  Srsly, it was the best blackberry pie I've ever made.  Not bad for my first blackberry pie making experience, eh?

 Whipping cream, real maple syrup, nutmeg, egg yolks....okay, okay, I'll come over and make it for you.  But you're buying the booze.









In addition, it was the first Thanksgiving that Mikenna and Ken tried combining the Johnsons AND the Summers/Skinners for a holiday get-together.  Nobody even gave anyone else a black eye or anything.  Except mom.  She already had one.  It was a wonderfully joyous occasion.  The turkey was great, the atmosphere was festive.  And I was drunk, trying to play Wii and yelling at the TV.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Sucking
     The Broncos lost.  The. Broncos. Lost.  Lost.  As in didn't win.  And all we could do was watch in stunned horror.

 

Since we [gulp] lost, I've been walking around in a haze of terrible awful doom and sadfulness.  I feel like a terrible kraken dragged me into a dark cave and did unspeakable things to my soul.




Even so, when we play again on Saturday, I hope that every last stinkin' fan will be out there cheering their heads off and not being dirty rotten fair-weather fans.  And even though I want to wad Kyle Brotzman up into a ball and kick a winning 26 yard field goal with him, I hope no one boos him on Senior Day because that is super lameness.  I bet his soul feels like a Kraken raped it in a dark cave, too.  And since I know how that feels, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.  Except that dirty cheater Cam Newton.

So now, instead of being filled with visions of jolly bowl game trips in warm-weather locales, the winter ahead looks like this:

Actually, it doesn't.  It looks like this:

On an unrelated note, if you say "snow" over and over in your head, it starts to sound really weird.  Isn't "snow" a weird word? 

Pants-Peeing Awesomeness (UPDATED!)

*You should probably not read this article anymore because it will make you cry.
Want to read something that will make your insides feel like they're being gently bathed in warm, cinnamon scented, liquid steroids?   Then read this article!
*Psst!!  That's a link up there!  Click it!

Tailgate Highlights

Today's episode of College Tailgate Final is brought to you by Peppermint Schnapps.

PRE-GAME:
Since it was cold, we made the big switch from cold beer mode into "hot toddy" mode.  I had to work all day, so Cody was in charge of tailgate preparation and bless him, he did a great job.  He pulled together an impressive tailgate spread of coffee with Irish cream and hot chocolate with two bottles of peppermint schnapps.  And hot dogs.  Cody was able to put away almost an entire bottle of schnapps before kickoff- very impressive stats.  He is REALLY preparing for this game.  We can certainly expect a top-notch performance out of him tonight.

FIRST QUARTER:
The team got off to a rocky start, so I spent the first quarter worrying about dropping in the polls and Cody spent the first quarter talking about how great Peppermint Schnapps is.  And admonishing me for doubting our inevitable national championship bid.
End of quarter score:  Broncos 3, Bulldogs 0

SECOND QUARTER:

Actual Conversation-
Cody:  "Babe!  We are the number one team in the country.  I know it!  We could beat anyone!  Bring it on!  We can take on anyone!
Rae:  "I dunno......we might lose to Ore....."
Cody:  "You're always doubting us.  You've been saying since day one that we would lose to Alabama, we would lose to Texas.....You're such a naysayer!"
Rae:  "Texas?  I never said we would lose to Tex...."
Cody:  "We would beat ANYONE.  Guaranteed."
Rae:  "Hey!  Back at the start of the season, I thought we might actually lose to Alabama.  Things changed.  I can change my mind if I want to!  I thought Alabama would be number 1 all season.  They weren't.  The only team I'm worried about anymore is Oregon.  I think Oregon actually might be able to beat us if we pla........."
Cody:  "Oregon?  Do you know what we would do to Oregon?  I will tell you what we would do to the Ducks.  We would take their butts and shove 'em up their asses....."
Rae:  ??????.....
End of quarter score:  Broncos 20, Bulldogs 0

HALFTIME: 
Back out at the tailgate, Cody puts away another half bottle of schnapps.  If he keeps these stats up, he might just have a record breaking night.  We don't see this kind of performance from him every game.  We are definitely dealing with one finely tuned athlete.

THIRD QUARTER:
I smuggled the remainder of our 2nd bottle of peppermint schnapps into the stadium in the waistband of my long underwear.  I decided, after some discussion, to put it in the front of my pants because no one would dare say anything right?  I could be pregnant or even just fat and NOBODY would dare say something, right?  They would be all "Excuse me, but it looks like you have something in the front of your shirt" and I'd be all "Are you saying I'm fat?" and I'd turn to Cody and start to cry because the ticket-taker said I look fat and the ticket taker would feel bad and we'd get free loge seats for next season.  That's how it plays out in my head, anyways.....   Long story short, I looked like I was pregnant.  With a peppermint booze baby.

End of quarter score:  Broncos 37, Bulldogs 0

FOURTH QUARTER:

Cody and I got into an interesting debate revolving around how many people in the stands had actually killed someone.   I clarified that I meant people who had gotten away with killing someone and NOT people who had been punished and done time for it.  Looking around, I KNEW there had to be some people there who had been keeping the body under their back porch as a dirty little secret for years and years.  I said that there must surely be 5 or 6. He said no, if there was ONE that would really be something.  Law enforcement is no slouch, he said.  There was MAYBE 1.  I said no, there had to be at least 5.  Then we debated about whether or not to count veterans who had served in active duty.
Final score:  Broncos 51, Bulldogs 0

POST-GAME:
By this time, the full effects of the Schnapps had been realized.  We had to take down the easy-up now.  This is not the easiest job.  For those of you who live in a hole and as such have never been to a tailgate party, this is what an easy-up looks like-

Me, I love the easy up.  I don't think it's been that big a pain to put up or take down and I enjoy the shade during hot tailgates and the shelter during rain/snow.  The easy-up, though, is the bane of Cody's existence and his dad's as well.  They affectionately refer to it as the "Easy up, Motherfucker down".
As we began to take down the easy up this particular night, something wasn't working quite right.  The supporting poles wouldn't bend in and collapse so we could fold it up. Cody was in no mood to mess with the thing.

 

Rather than attempt to determine the reason for the hang-up, the answer was clearly to use more force.  The longer Cody tried to get it to fold up, the more annoyed he got.  Pretty soon he was in a mint booze fueled episode.  There was no anger or shouting.  Just pure, unadulterated hate for the easy-up.  Finally, he did the only other thing he could think to do.  He judo-chopped the poles.

 Plastic pieces and chunks flew left and right.  Cody's brother-in-law and I were helpless bystanders, watching as Cody murdered the easy-up.  When he was done "fixing" it, it was totally mangled.

 

And then came his second brilliant solution.  Why not throw the now-mangled easy up in the dumpster?  Despite my protests, he insisted it was easily replaceable, if he even decided to get another, that was.  This was such a brilliant solution to centuries of struggles between the easy up and mankind.  As we dumbfoundedly assisted him in gathering the pieces and hauling the remains to the trash, he regaled us with loudly-told tales of past wars with the easy up. It seemed they had all been worth it now, as he heaved the busted up canopy into the dumpster.  He was jubilant with glee.  

And that is how the easy up died.  So if you're planning on coming to the next (last) tailgate of the season, you best bring your umbrella.

FINAL SCORE:  Cody 1, Easy up 0

Hey Followers!!

Guess what?  If you're a follower and you are interested, I can add you to an email list that will automatically email you the link whenever there's a new posting!  What does that mean?  It means that every time I post rad awesomeness, you'll automatically be notified!  It's like a hallelujah chorus for your inbox!  So you'll never have to miss a moment of our sheer comedic genius!  If you want on the list, just leave me a comment after this post and I'll put your email address on our VIP list!  Yay super fun-times multiple exclamation point happy jolliness!!!!

Actual Conversations

Actual conversation during dinner at The Tavern with my mother-

Mom:  "We've been studying the different generations and how to solve conflict between them.  You know, like 'Baby Boomers', 'Generation X'......"

Me:  "What generation am I, then?"

Mom:  "Well, you'd be a 'Millennial' and Cody and I are from 'Generation X'."

Me:  "Don't point out that he and I are in different generations, ma.  He does that all the time on his own."

Cody:  "I'm actually probably right on the cusp between generations.  I've also been told I could be considered 'Generation Y' too."

Me:  "You're 'Generation WTF'."

Cody:  "You're 'Generation STFU'."

---------------------------------------------------------------
Actual conversation overheard between my dad and my uncle at a tailgate party:

Jeff:  "Hey, by the way, I still need to give you back your chestnut roaster."

Todd:  "Oh yeah!  You know what I wanna try sometime?  Using one of those old popcorn poppers.  You know, like the one we used to pretend was a banjo?"

Project Complete!!

So, I finished the project.  We finished the project.  And not without a few expected snags.  We've learned some very important lessons along the way.  First lesson- do NOT buy 3M blue painter's tape with "Leak Lock Technology".  Leak lock technology is super fail.  The rounded corner lines I sealed were perfectly straight.  Uncle Jeff's tip was sheer genius.  But the tape pulled off the original color underneath it.  So we had perfectly razor straight red lines with ripped off tan paint next to them.  We had to go back along the lines and paint the original color back onto the wall where the tape had been.  Lame.  On the hard corners (along one wall and the ceiling) where I only taped, but did not seal, the red paint leaked HORRIBLY and we had to go back with a tiny craft brush and fix the lines.  It was incredibly tedious.  Which leads us to the second lesson- always seal the tape with the original color.  Just do it.

I won't say Cody and I weren't a tad irritated with each other at a point or two during the project.  Most of the irritation happened when it was 11pm and I had just pulled the tape off and discovered the paint leaks.  Fuck you very much, leak lock technology.  Do not ever buy that tape.  Lesson 3- Don't work on a project when you're exhausted.  When I discovered the errors and had to try to fix them, Cody made the unfortunate mistake of pointing out that he had thought painting was a bad idea in the first place.  He hadn't wanted to do it to begin with, he said.  I think at that point, I sprouted horns and shot flames out my eye sockets, so needless to say, we had to continue the project another day.  I hadn't realized that you could be very very anal while claiming that "perfection should not be the enemy of the good".  And I'm sure Cody didn't realize that you could be having a great time painting while you teeter on the verge of tears and fury.   But in the end, he and I fixed all the glitches and have ourselves one hell of a paint job to show for it.  TADA!!!!  When all is said and done, it looks great because we are pretty much rad.  Yay us!

Project!!

Guess what I'm doing this weekend?!?!  I'll give you a hint:

After almost two years of talking about it, Cody finally agreed to let me paint the wall in the dining room!!  Yay!! 
I would say "we" are going to paint it, but Cody would "rather sit on his ass" (yes, he said that).  Apparently he and his dad think that painting is something you're supposed to pay other people to do.  But I LOVE painting, so I'm super excited.  Plus, after watching 7 college football games today (not kidding- 7), I was ready to jump out of my skin.  I had to do something, so Cody agreed to take me to Lowe's to get the supplies, which he claims is the hardest part of a painting project.  I guess if that's the only part of the project you actually DO, it is the hardest part.  But I can't knock him too much, cause he shelled out the $70 for the supplies.
So anyways, I'm going to spend tomorrow painting the wall.  Here's the before picture. 

Tonight I cleaned the wall, taped everything off, and "sealed the edges".  Since his wall has rounded corners, we wanted the line between rooms to be really neat and straight.  So I taped the lines and then used the same color of paint that's already on the wall to paint along the inside edge of the tape line.  In theory, this will seal off the edge of the tape so that the new color doesn't leak underneath and make the edges uneven.  Big thanks to Uncle Jeff for the tip!  I hope our edges look as nice as his.  More to follow!  Stay tuned!

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

No shit, this is a bag of cookies I found in the office kitchen this morning:

 

Cookie anyone?

Didn't think so.

Technology 1, Cody and Rae 0

I wanted to share with you all an actual instant message conversation that took place the other day betwixt me and Cody.  I said "betwixt" just now because it's more fun to say than "between".  Plus....well, I'm rad.
I copied this straight from the instant message conversation we had and pasted it here so that you get the full impact of exactly what was said.
Before you begin reading it, though, I must give some important background by defining a few things for you.

"The Kaspersky Anti-Virus Debacle":  Kaspersky is the anti-virus software that was installed on Cody's laptop by Best Buy when he bought it.  It is supposedly guaranteed to launch a face-melting nuclear assault on all the zombie viruses that are attacking your puny weakling laptop.  IF you keep it current.  Cody's Kaspersky expired a month or two ago and he hasn't renewed it.  It bleeps out this horrifying, stroke inducing warning alert every few minutes while you're using the computer and an annoying bubble pops up to remind you that if you don't renew soon, a ninja will stab you to death in your sleep.  According to him, to renew will require everything but a barefoot treacherous climb to the top of Mordor to throw your laptop into the fiery pit.  He very bombastically claims that it will take a whole day of being on the phone and creating accounts and driving to Best Buy and signing a billion dollar agreement in blood.  I tried to tell him that if he'll just take it over to Best Buy and drop it off with the Geek Squad, they'll fix it all up and call him when its ready.  But apparently even with that option, he still needs to take a whole vacation day during the week to do it because it will still take hours and hours and he refuses to waste a whole weekend day when he could be watching football or fishing.  I've been trying to tell him it can't possibly be that big a deal, but we've been going back and forth about it for several weeks now.

"The Great Groupon Debacle":  I recently signed up for Groupon.  If you don't know, Groupon is a website that emails you a daily discount deal from a local store or shop or vendor.  They usually give you such a good deal that you cannot possibly NOT buy the daily Groupon because it's typically like a billion percent discount.  I keep hoping that I'll open my email one morning to find a Groupon for a $5 whole-body plastic surgery deal or free lasik eye surgery with the purchase of a 22 oz mocha.  At any rate, I recently bought 4 fandango movie tickets for $20.  If you've been to Edwards lately, you know that you're not getting out of there for less than the price of your sedan, so this was a good deal and I couldn't NOT buy it (which is exactly what the Groupon wants).  After buying the Groupon, I was given a Groupon redemption code that I then had to take to the  "My Weekly Cinema" website and enter, which in turn would give me the Fandango codes for the tickets, which could be taken to the Fandango site to pick your movie and get the theater code, which I would then enter at the ticket kiosk at the theater.  This could not possibly fail.  I was supremely confident that this hoop jumping was worth it, because I got cheap movie tickets and YOU didn't [neener neener]......It was fool proof.  Plus, I had my old pal iPad on my side and I could do this stuff ANYWHERE!!  I redeemed two of the tickets one evening whilst we ate at TGIFridays so that we could go to the movie right after.  I was smug.  "See?"  I said.  "Technology CAN be your friend."  "Look at ME" I said.  "I just reserved movie tickets while we ate dinner". I was euphoric.

Until we got to Edwards and then....well, BOOM goes the dynamite.  When we got there,  there was no wi-fi to retrieve my confirmation codes and the theater employees couldn't find my purchase in their system because I didn't use the Fandango site, I used the Groupon site.  I went to the arcade to poach their wi-fi, but the iPad had a rare and massive brain fart and wouldn't connect to it.  We ran to the Moxie Java to use theirs, but they needed a guest password and we hadn't bought anything and the wi-fi was for customers only.  Cody kept saying we should just say "screw it" and go buy some tickets, but by this time, I was having a mini-nervous breakdown.  We finally solved the problem using Cody's cell phone internet, which of course was working like gangbusters.  I was just sure that somewhere deep down inside, he was smiling smugly that technology had once again taken a gigantic dump on me.  I was NOT giving him the satisfaction of winning (and by winning, I mean me admitting that technology is a giant fail and him "saving the day" and paying for tickets).  And I was totally demoralized that my Groupon AND my iPad, my precious, had both failed me.  I felt like Satan had unleashed his evil mastiff on me and it was taking a hot steaming leak on my leg.  I was choking back a fury like hell hath no.  I was afraid that any minute, I'd melt into a big pile of anger and tears and disappointment and shame.  And when the problem was solved, I felt totally stupid.  I felt like a four-year old kid who needed a time-out.

Now that you know all that, you can read the conversation below:

Rae says:               

Hey babe!  How's your afternoon going?

Cody says:            

Meh... OK... I've got the afternoon drowsies.  You?

Rae says:               

Me too.....You should go check the latest blog post.  For real.

Cody says:            
OK... I will when I get a few minutes...
[Five minutes elapse]

Your blog was same old, same old, Rae Summers- Genius.

I really liked it!  Great humor!

Rae says:               

If you say so......

Cody says:            

I would comment, but I don't remember how...

I have to sign in or something, right?

Rae says:               

It's not that hard.  You just hit "comment" at the bottom of it.

Cody says:           

Yeah... but then it asks to select "profile"...

Wtf is that?

Rae says:              

Where it says "0 comments" or "1 comment"

You just click there and then use your Google profile to comment 

Cody says:           

Yeah... I don't remember my userid or password...

Rae says:              

I say just forget about it then

Cody says:           

Yeah, it should be easy... I only have 356 different userids and passwords...

I should have written it down...

Rae says:             

Whatevs babe

I say just forget it

I dunno why you don't make all your userids and passwords the same 

so you can remember them.

Cody says:           

I think I figured it out...

and I wrote it down

I added it to my binder of userids and passwords

Rae says:            

Well you didn't need to take a big chunk of time out of your day to comment

but thanks for the comment.

Cody says:         

yeah... that's okay... it only took 20 minutes or so to figure it all out

Rae says:           

[sigh]

Cody says:         

I'm setting tomorrow aside to figure out my kaspersky anti-virus stuff...

may take the day off work

Rae says:           

you should NOT do that and take THURSDAY off instead.  I don't work.

That way, with our powers combined, we can do it in half a day 

and use the other half for fishing.

Cody says:        

I'm only taking the afternoon off for fishing Thursday...

Rae says:           

but didn't you just say you were taking a whole day off for Kaspersky renewal stuff?

You'll take a whole day for that and only half for fishing? 

Cody says:        

actually I might just bring my computer into work tomorrow...

that way I can spend the whole day calling, downloading, etc, etc.

Rae says:          

[sigh]

I like that you're a techno-pessimist, but a real-life optimist.

Cody says:       

yeah... I can't wait for your next Groupon debacle... I'll try not to laugh...

Rae says:          

Eff you

Hide ya kids.......

 Rae!  Cody!  What have you been up to?  

First of all we've been making fun of Antoine Dodson all weekend.  In case you don't know about him, here is a link to the story (YES, a real ACTUAL news story. Repeat-  this is not a joke):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzNhaLUT520
Then came the re-mix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrWu13Uh2Yw&feature=related
Cody and I have been laughing about it for months.  Then, last week, he emailed me this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2uJyCPCy5w
Which gave us a third wind.  We've been laughing about it all weekend.  Thanks for taking that little journey with me.  I trust you've all become dumber along the way.

What else?  WELL.......

In addition to that,  we tailgated Saturday.  Broncos win again.  Kellen Moore threw for 507 yards and three touchdowns.  We also went ahead and rolled up a school-record 737 total yards and a 42-7 victory, thank you very much.  Go Broncos!  And what do we get for it? 

I don't know about you, but I'm ok with TCU going to a major bowl game instead of us.  I'd much rather play the California Bay Area Polytechnic School at the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese bowl on Christmas eve. 
Once again, I brought the camera to the tailgate party, but I did NOT take any pictures of tailgating because everyone who was there knows what it looked like and if you weren't there, well I guess that's what you get for not coming.  If you had, you'd know what it looked like and you wouldn't need pictures.

Sunday was my dad's 53rd    14th    43rd birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!  We went and saw the new Will Ferrell  movie "Megamind" to celebrate.  Such a funny movie!  Go see it!  No, I mean now.  Go see it now.  Just stop doing what you're doing.  If you're working, go and tell your boss you're sick and go to it.   It will be way better than whatever it is you're doing.  If you don't go see it, you are so dumb.  You are really dumb.  For real.

The time change yesterday totally threw us for a loop.  Anyone else feel totally out of whack?  It felt like bedtime for about five hours last night.  At what felt like 8pm, we looked at the clock and it was 4:45.  At what felt like 11pm, we looked at the clock and it was 7:15.  At that point, we surrendered ourselves to our pajama pants.  At what felt like midnight, but was actually 9pm, we decided to cure our boredom with mindless eating.   I gave up and went to sleep on the couch at what felt like 2am, but was actually only 10:30.  On the plus side, getting out of bed this morning wasn't quite as hard.  And I didn't really mind yesterday seeming endless because I always get terrible Sunday blues. It allowed me to labor under the delusion that the weekend was much longer than it actually was.  Hooray!!

We've allowed ourselves to become followers of a new show on AMC- "The Walking Dead".  We're two shows in and pretty well hooked.   If you decide to check it out, keep something in mind:
It is VERY gory.  And by VERY gory, I mean VERY VERY gory.  And by VERY VERY gory, I mean VERY awesome.  It's also definitely not for the kiddies.  So if you're going to watch it, you better hide ya kids, hide ya wife.......
I am not normally a fan of "following" shows or series because then you're stuck watching every week and waiting to find out what happens.  But I would follow a lot more shows if they had zombies in them.  Like, if "Dancing with the Stars" had zombies, I'd probably watch that too. 

That's it for today.  Thanks for tuning in.  For "Party of Two", I'm Rae Summers.  You stay classy, everybody.

Happy Halloween!!!

My FAVORITE time of year!  Halloween crept up on us this year.  I think it's because our seasons have been so out-of-whack.  It didn't feel like summer until about August 31.  Then was warm and beautiful until about the second week of October and when some a-hole pulled a switch and BAM, it was cold and fall-ish.  All of a sudden.  One day it was 70 and the next it was 40. I barely got the decorations up in time.  I thought I'd do a post about our Halloween adventures and post all of our fun pictures. 

Well, first off, I'm pretty sure Cody's house is haunted.  It's very creaky.  Not creepy, creaky.  Actually, given the astronomical number of horror movies I've been watching, it's been creepy lately too.  Only I swear (despite what Cody says) that sometimes the upstairs floor creaks when no one is upstairs.  And now I have proof.  We took a picture of Trooper the other night and caught a ghost in the background.  See?  Irrefutable proof of paranormal activity in Cody's house!!

Here is this year's pumpkin.   I admit it isn't up to my usual standards, but I was drinking beer and watching football and talking to Jacquelyn while I was carving.  It reminds me a little of Jack Skellington, which I did NOT do on purpose.  We also baked the pumpkin seeds.  SO good!  Cody didn't do one at all because everyone knows that men can only do one thing at a time and when football is on that's the one thing. Once during a game, I told Cody that was pregnant with Mick Jagger's mutant pterodactyl crack baby and he didn't answer until commercial, at which time he just said "Ok, wait, what now?"

Anyways, I really went yard on our costumes this year.  I had so much fun with it!  Cody wanted to be the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O. 4000 from South Park. I wanted to be Leela from Futurama.  I spent about two weeks working on the costumes because I guess I'm just hard-core like that.  Also, I'm butt-tons of awesome.  I cut out tons of pieces of foil and little construction paper squares and pairs of tights and used about 50 sticks of hot glue.  The A.W.E.S.O.M.-O. was pretty user friendly too.  The head attached to the body with stick-on velcro so that it could be removed for easy beer drinking.

After some preliminary tests, the user requested that I modify the design by adding a hole in the mouth-area to accommodate a bendy straw so he can drink beer without taking the head off at all.  Also, I told him it was okay to drink a lot of alcohol because robots need alcohol to fuel their cells.  He just sort of looked at me funny and then I realized that those are Futurama robot rules, not South Park robot rules and A.W.E.S.O.M.-O. is not a real robot like Bender anyways.  He's a stupid fat kid in a robot costume.  Duh, Rae.  Get it straight.


 Saturday night, we went out to Old Chicago.  Almost everyone who was supposed to come actually bailed.  They probably got attacked by robot unicorns or captured by Jigsaw or came down with raging cases of lame-itis or something, so we totally understood.  It's really too bad they were unavoidably detained because we had an absolute freaking blast without them.  You should have seen Cody walking around in that stupid robot outfit.  Me and Kenna almost peed.  Cody didn't think that anyone would "get" his costume.  I said that was nonsense.  And then I explained that TV has been a cornerstone of life since the early 1300s and that now, millions of years after the invention of the first television set,  people can still really connect with TV shows like South Park because we're all very stupid.  Also, I explained, even if no one gets it, he's still a grown man in a cardboard robot suit and that's just fucking funny no matter how you slice it.   He was wrong.  Everyone got it.  He was the hit of the night.  He couldn't have been a bigger hit unless he was handing out free sacks of crack.  My costume was great, too, BTW.  Except people kept asking me where Fry was.  Next year, I need a Fry. 

I made my eye out of bubble goggles covered with white nylons. Are you impressed?  Well you should be.  Do you know how tricky that was?  I should sell that thing on Etsy for like a thousand dollars.  I think my favorite part, though, was the boots.  I bought black rubber boots from the WalMart and spray painted them.  They were actually the most comfortable pair of shoes I've ever had on and I want to wear them all day, every day,  forever.  Trust me, you do NOT want a roundhouse kick to the face while I am wearing those bad boys.

I very nearly had a costume crisis.  I ran out of purple spray because I only bought one can.  Cody sensed a meltdown.  He began to frantically think up places we might procure some more Jerome Russell Panther Purple spray.  One flying trip to Walgreens and three cans of spray later, I had very purple hair.  And I was high as a kite.  I trailed a purple haze of chemical stink all night long.  The real  problem, though, was when I tried to get the purple OUT.  For one thing, the spray is not just color, but also actual hair spray, so my whole head was stiff.  The hair tie was glued in place and had to be cut out with scissors.  It did finally wash out, but the chemical smell stuck for at least a week. 

On Sunday, we got dressed up again and went out to visit some family.  We met my dad at Sockeye for a beer.  At the end of the evening, we decided to go to the Tavern for sushi.  And let me tell you, those Tavern people acted like it wasn't Halloween at all.  Not a single costume in the joint.  Not even a decoration.  What a bunch of stiffs!  The looks I was getting, you'd have thought I had one eye.
Anyways, here are a few more pictures.  I hope you all had as fun a Halloween as I did.  Now all we have to look forward to are Thanksgiving and Christmas.  [sigh].........