I can't believe I have two more hours to go!
I'm working my once-every-2-months Saturday shift, got here at 8, only one person has called, and that was early in the morining.
Dang, it is soooo boring!

I've checked every web site and every message board I can think of.
I checked in on TheForce.Net, and read a discussion about how can Leia say she remembers her mother, in Return of the Jedi, if her mother dies in child birth in Revenge of the Sith? Does she remember her birth? Is she talking about her adoptive mother? Or her birth mother? Some people seem to believe the Leia as a grown adult could somehow not know she was adopted. Duh . How could she not know she was adopted. Some people believe Leia has a force-related relationship with Padme's ghost. I say it's just a plot hole.

Yesterday both kids had outdoor field trips. My son went to a farm, my daughter went to Valley Fair to celebrate her class's upcoming graduation from elementary school, next week. It poured rain yesterday , just like it's poured rain every day for about the last 30 days or more. I was glad when they both said they had fun anyway!

I'm cheating on my no pop no fast food rule, I'm drinking a diet coke at my desk right now. I hope it will keep me awake. A few days ago I bougnt and drank a can of real coke , I drank it after I got home, while I was making dinner for everyone and trying to clean up my kitchen. All this constant rain has made me lethargic. The inside of my house looks like the Delta Fraternity on Animal House. Don't come over right now.

A nice guy I never heard of emailed me today and sent me photographs of my home town. They showed the Yakima Mall, where I spent so much of my childhood and teenage-hood all boarded up and ready to be torn down. He sent them to me after reading my web log. I forget people read it at all.

Next week is both kids' last day of school! Then my girl will be a big sixth grader, and will go to middle school in the fall, and my boy will be a big first grader!

I saw Star Wars Episode III on Friday night. I had the whole first two rows to myself! I went off my no-pop diet and had a medium real coke, and a popcorn. I loved the imagery and the music and again, all the references to things that will happen in the original Star Wars. But I'm really disapointed in George Lucas's decision to make Amidala such a damsel in distress again, and to write that Anakin's downfall, and the downfall of the entire universe, was all because of Anakin's love for a woman. Isn't that the oldest cliche out there? My husband disagrees with me that that's even the case, but that's how I read the movie, anyway.

I'm getting the chance to practice my Norwegian Language skills at a message board called www.bareprat.com , and still enjoy seeing what Marco Pirroni and other music fans have to say at www.onlyloversleftalive.com forum. I check in on them all the time.

I've visited Mindekirken www.mindekirken.org several times now. I've attended two sunday services, and 2 Tuesday afternoon luncheons, for which I had to take a full day or a half day off work. I really don't know anything about the Lutheran Church, but it's been fun visiting. I can't believe this place has been here in Minneapolis the whole 22 years I've been here, and I didn't know about it until recently. I could have had free Norwegian classes and everything, all this time. Like Sons of Norway, most people there are very, very old. They think I'm "young." I'm 40. I also attended a pre-Syttende Mai outdoor festival in Loring Park on Saturday, May 14. But it rained the whole time, and we all had to stay under a big canopy tent, and watch choirs and folk dancers performing under a slightly smaller, different canopy, a few yards away. I'm glad I didn't take my husband and kids. What's funny is that I'm attending so many Norwegian events that I'm starting to run in to the same very old people, and they recognize me! As I took the bus out there, it ocurred to me I probably haven't ridden a city bus for over a year. Jeez, they used to be my second home, before I moved to the suburbs 5 years ago!

My ESL English as a Second class is going OK , on Tuesday nights. I now have one lady from Somalia who is a lot less shy now and willing to try to talk, and try new words; and now also a lady from China who fixates on this calculator she brings with her, on which she can type an English word, and they Chinese word comes up. In some ways its pretty cool, because I can write down a word and pronounce it, and she can look up its meaning without me having to act it out or demostrate it. But it also prevents her from participating in conversation because she can just sit there tying away on it unless I get her attention. Also, and I've seen this with other litterate ESl students, she focuses on the international-alphabet pronunciation cue next to each word in the dictionary. One, it includes characters not in the English alphabet, and to my shame, I took that class in college so long ago I don't remember all the characters! I need a refresher, myself! And Two, it shows British pronunciation for everything, and she wants to go by that. This is Minnesota. Good luck.

I watch way way too much tv, and play on the internet too much. I tivo episodes of The Smoking Room from BBC America. I will watch just about any VH1 nostalgia clip shows, in which celebreties and entertainers discuss pop culture. Or other similar VH1 clip shows about such topics as The 20 least hip hop moments, or any other topic they can come up with. I will watch the E Entertainment TV True Hollywood Story or Behind the Scenes episodes of the history of TV shows I've never even seen, like Full House or Growing Pains. And of course the kids have Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon on all the time. We watch Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron, and Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, and of course all the other cartoons that come on those channels.

Oh, and I have a new little neice as of Friday May 20!! My brother's wife had a baby girl!