Ok, I’ve created an album on Picasa called “Ona Favorites” where I’ll be uploading our favorite pictures of her. I won’t upload every single one taken, just ones that are cute or funny or whatever. I want to make it seem like I’m saving you the trouble of wading through tons of pictures, but really I’m just making sure you only think Ona is the super cute (which, ahem, she is).
Here is the linky: http://picasaweb.google.com/ericmuntz/OnaFavorites
Here is the picture that inspired this…
Last night I was trying to get Ona comfortable and sleeping. She seemed only comfortable on my chest, but that’s not the best sleep for me so I was up thinking random junk all night. I was thinking about the upcoming Turkey Day and all the “what I’m thankful for” discussions. I figured this year’s will be easy, I can just pick up Ona and hold her over the table, Simba style. So, to challenge myself, instead of thinking about what I am thankful for, I started thinking about what I’m looking forward to. Having a kid really gives me a lot to look forward to, but even aside from Ona doing stuff, there is a lot coming up very soon…
After thinking about that stuff, I started thinking about everything Ona will be doing in the next year. I don’t really know what milestones go with what ages, because I avoid parenting books like the plague, but I’d imagine in the next year she’ll be rolling over, laughing (she’s close now), crawling, maybe walking and hell, maybe saying a word or two (or making a sound and us pretending it was a word, either way works). It’ll be cool to see all of that unfold and to start to see her have a personality. That’ll be wicked cool. Of course, I started thinking about all the things I’ll be seeing and envisioned her running around playing games, riding bikes, building things, going crazy.
The one image that stood out that I just can’t wait to see is Ona being proud of herself. I think that’ll be one of the happiest moments for me. So many different emotions will come into play – from being happy for her, proud of us for helping her get to that point, and on and on, all boiled up in one seemingly tiny event. That’s what I’m looking forward to now.
Ona got some college football love through baby osmosis this weekend, and even though the Auburn Tigers weren’t playing an important game she got to see her Dad act like a retard. I watched all or parts of three games while hanging with the baby girl, and two of them had me surprisingly emotional.
The first was Navy vs. Notre Dame. I actually have always liked ND, I guess it’s because they were awesome and fun when I was growing up and learning to like college football. So, unlike a lot of the haters, I haven’t been on the “screw ND” bandwagon, until this weekend. I have love for Navy, since Scuba Steve went to school there and took us on a really fun tour four or five years ago, and how can you not root for a team who has lost 43 straight matchups (unless it’s Bama… only 38 more to go). I went into the game thinking “this will be relatively fun, I hope Navy hangs tight” and five minutes in I was totally 100% hating ND and loving Navy. I don’t know what happened, but I cheered for Navy in that game as hard as I’ve ever cheered a team before. All of a sudden, ND was vile scum, and I was fully on the hater wagon. Makes for a much more enjoyable experience, especially when that arrogant prick coach at ND refuses to ever punt or kick a field goal and their QB is met with the leaping sack of death to end regulation. What a play. Truly awesome. Now, I’ve heard a lot of hating for Weiss before and never really understood it, but that game made me a super hater. Never punting, you arrogant prick? Take THAT. After it ended and we got to watch Navy’s coach very goofily run around like an uncoordinated 8 year-old, Weiss was asked “what went wrong” and brilliantly stated “they scored two more points than us”. 6 more years on that contract, ND.
Next up was LSU vs. Bama. Another recent super hatred for me is Bama. Not that I ever liked them, but they weren’t the team I needed to beat every year, even though they are Auburn’s huge rival (sorry, Dan and Troy, but Georgia has always been the team I needed us to beat). However, with the addition of O’Saban Bin Lyin (as Dan Lebatard calls him), Bama is the team I hate the most. I mean, I hate them. [shakes fists]. So, again, watching those bastards lose to LSU was great. It was really tight and LSU made the kind of mistakes that typically lose games, but Bama proved to suck more, and golden boy QB coughed up a big one deep in their own territory. That got a scream that scared the poo out of Ona (not literally, thankfully). Lots of screaming and shouting from my couch, even though I had to take an Ona break and go for a walk during the middle portions. That’s two games I’ve watched Bama lose in dramatic fashion (other was vs. Georgia) and both times my exuberance has solidified how important Iron Bowl is to me this year.
Finally, I tried to watch Arizona State vs. Oregon. Yeah, PAC-10 (aka “Whack 10″) action. I got through about the first quarter before the colors of Oregon’s uniforms made me feel epileptic and pukey and I had to turn it off. Those uni’s should cost their QB the heisman. Seriously, why would a team ever want to look like really ugly highlighters? WHY?!? It’s brutal.
Lots o’ people call me cheap (my Grandma most frequently, but I’ll save the internets from her “only funny because I’m a cranky old black woman” racist slurs). I don’t think I’m that cheap, but what the hell do I know? I figure if I am cheap, then I probably know some good ways to get deals. And if I do, then, hell, some people may find my shopping habits interesting. I’ll stick to my internet shopping, since that’s really all the shopping I do anyway.
Katy went for a walk yesterday with Ona and got cornered by our nosy old neighbors. They apparently talked for 30 minutes about random nonsense and neighborhood rumors. One cool thing that came from it, though, was the guy said “Ona? Muntz? Wasn’t there an actress named ‘Ona Muntz’ or something 60 years ago?”. A quick google search turned up the actress Ona Munson (close enough, says me):
She is best remembered for her role of southern madam Belle Watling in the classic 1939 film, “Gone With the Wind.â€
From the main blurb on her wikipedia page, it sounds like she would have been the tabloids dream come true if she was alive today. I can’t imagine this having gone over well in the pre “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll” era. Not necessarily the best role model for Ona, but hell, sounds like she had fun…
Munson was married three times, to actor and director Edward Buzzell in 1927, to Stewart McDonald in 1941, and designer Eugene Berman in 1949. She also had numerous lesbian affairs[1].
In 1955, plagued by ill health, she committed suicide at the age of 51 with an overdose of barbiturates in her apartment in New York.
A note found next to her deathbed read:
“This is the only way I know to be free again…Please don’t follow me.”
Just a quick update. I was in DC last week for bid-ness. Felt wicked guilty leaving Katy and Ona home alone, but family stepped up huge and spent the night with Katy (my Mom one night, her bro another). When I got back Thursday late afternoon, the nanny (btw, we hired a part-time nanny so Katy can work Mon/Fri) watched Ona so Katy and I went out for dinner (@ Nino’s, which was just OK) and got caught up. Very nice welcome home.
DC was pretty fun, though one day was nothing but meetings for 10+ hours. Ouch. Highlights, chronologically:
Now at home and back to the ole grind. Ona is doing well, still fighting reflux but we’re finding a routine. She likes to be pissed off between 8pm and midnight, which is “daddy’s shift”, so I get crying Ona most of the time. But, last night, she was super awesome and showed me the love. Yay. I will start a Picasa album for her pics soon and will post a linky link.
Who would play you in a movie?
Something totally random to talk about… who would play me in a movie?
I wish I could say it would be somebody all hot and desired by the masses, like Brad Pitt or something. But, I know who I am and know it’d have to be somebody geekier than that.
Thomas always said if I were a woman I’d be:
He called her “Muntz Chick”. I guess I can see the resemblance. She’s pretty hot, I think, so yay me as a woman.
When the show was popular and I had an afro, I was often told I could play this guy’s long-lost kid:
But, since I’m half black that probably wouldn’t go over so well. Sorry, that was too easy.
Thomas also pointed out the guy who probably looks and acts the most like me (well, at least when I was in college and he was on “Undeclared”). His nose looks much bigger than mine in this picture and he probably looks more like the bastard child of me and Nick Palermo (don’t think the blog readers know him — he was a super cool guy I worked with in high school) but his mannerisms seem to be similar at least:
If he had a more raspy voice (maybe Marge Simpson’s voice?) and cussed a lot, that’d work. I can’t really think of anybody else who looks like me, though Troy often tells me I could have been a stand-in for this guy:
Haha, though I don’t see it. I’ve never realized how huge that head band was.
Thanks to my turtle-like posture and my job as a keyboard jockey, I will probably look like this in 25 years:
So, to the five readers out there, who would play you in a movie?
For those not familiar with the term, it’s basically blurred out words in an image presented on the internet. The point is to have people decipher it to prove they are human and not an automagic computer spambot (wikipedia page).
Can anybody tell me wtf this was supposed to be? I guessed “peYJAV” (which sounds like it should be something dirty) and was denied. Boo.
Haha, so awesome. And I feel like this pretty well sums up my outlook on my social life…
I was just washing dishes and thinking about Katy and I’s relationship and I recalled the single best piece of marriage advice we’ve ever gotten. This piece of advice saved us several times and has really helped us work together. The advice came from Jim and Amy Carlile when we were engaged. They told us to watch out for the miserable married people who want you to be miserable also, watch out for patterns like saying “the wife”, etc. They summed it up with the simple approach… “just be cool”. Hell yeah. That’s probably the generation X way of saying the golden rule or something, but I know for my part there have been many times I took a breath and said “just be cool” to myself and stopped whatever petty stupid behavior I was in the middle of. It has been the best marriage advice ever.
So, to make this post blog-like for the five people who actually read it, what’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?