Archive for June, 2007

June 27, 2007 | Filed under: country mouse

Click the spill for Quicktime video

or click here for you Flash player types

Ah, housepainting. The Brady Bunch made it look like so much fun. It’s not. They lied. The Brady’s had six kids and a perky housekeeper to help them out and they weren’t painting over stucco (Mike Brady was too good an architect to have lined their living room with stucco over paperboard).

Big changes coming here at the MMM of M. I’m eventually jumping ship to Wordpress, and the lovely ladies at Swank Web Style are doing their part to ensure overall swankiness. Not quite there yet, but very nearly done. The RSS feed will of course remain the same, and the videos will still reside at blip.tv, but www.missbhavens.com no longer points here, it instead points there.

BTW, the living room is now a very peculiar shade of beige that leans way toward pink. I have no idea how I feel about it.

June 25, 2007 | Filed under: technology

Isn’t this the coolest!? Welcome to the new and improved MMM of M courtesy of the webby women of Swank Web Style (that’s “webby” as in “web talented” not as in “they have webbed feet”). With a little more tweaking the new site will be all set, but in the meantime I’m still posting over at MMM of M’s former home so mosey over there to see what’s new. The RSS feed will stay the same for you feed-reader types, but www.missbhavens.com is here to stay for you link followers.

Onward and upward (and outward and sideways and, I expect, occasionally backward)!

June 12, 2007 | Filed under: la famiglia, misadventures

Click here for smokey Quicktime

or click here for sooty Flash!

…you can see forever! Well, not in my Nana’s apartment. You’re lucky if you can see across the room. She’s 86 years old and smokes a pack a day. Years ago, after a series of strokes, my Mother asked the doctor what she could do to help Nana quit. “Quit?”, he said, “why? She’s in her 80’s and loves cigarettes! Let her have SOME joy in her life!” or something like that.

Her walls and ceiling are stained a grubby beige. If her apartment were a sweater in a J.Crew catalog it would be called either “tobacco” or “nicotine”. Her upholstered furniture smells like a biker bar and the paintings have a thin coat of sooty film on them. In Miami, there’s central AC so it’s not like the windows get opened much. Being in that apartment for two afternoons took months off my life. It burns.

My Nana smokes like a stack (or does she?) and wants nothing more in the world than free cigarettes. So we did our part to help her realize her dream while sitting in her hazy apartment listening to On a Clear Day You Can See Forever on vinyl.

That’s what family is for!

My very favorite part of this video is when my Mom describes why she is angry with Philip Morris; NOT because they advised her 86 year old mother that if she cut 10 UPCs per day she’d have her free cigarettes in 20 days (am I the only one who finds that completely appalling?), but rather because most people don’t know what a UPC is, and it is not removed easily. The fact that little old ladies are being coached on how to maintain brand loyalty was sort of lost on her…but then again, she’s smoked since she was a teen.

Man, when they get you, they really get you for life. You’ve come a long way, baby.

This is the last of the Planet Nana series. Hope you’ve enjoyed my family foibles.

June 11, 2007 | Filed under: la famiglia

Pixie is here!
Originally uploaded by missbhavens

I was unable to attend the rockin’ videofest that was Pixelodeon this past weekend in LA for one single reason: my BFF (that’s, like, “Best Friend Forever”, duh!) was having a baby. Not just any baby, the superpowered, otherworldly, obviously brilliant baby you see here! Have you ever seen such a bright and musical baby? So teeny and so smart!

The third and final installment of the Planet Nana series is coming shortly. I’ve saved the best for last.