four brothers

duet

I woke up this morning remembering this one time that I was in the car with Johnny driving up 57 singing this song together.



That's a good memory.  

whoopsie-doozie

Johnny called me this morning, and when I picked up said, "I need you to find something funny so that I don't end up killing Eoin." Luckily for my nephew, I think the fact that he tried to give his sister "a haircut just like mine" is hilarious.

According to the photo Johnny sent me, it's sort of a faux-mullet, but Nola thinks she looks "so pretty." Maybe I should preemptively nominate her for What Not to Wear, so that when she get to the buying-her-own-clothes stage, we don't have any problems. This young woman needs some Stacy and Clinton up in her life.


UPDATE: Now she and I have the same haircut!

Aren't children just precious angels?

Johnny just called me to tell me he heard his daughter, my darling niece Finola, playfully reciting the names of the people in her family:

"There's Nana (my Mom), and Coach (my Dad), and Michael (my brother), and Crappy Girl (me)..."Because her older brother Eoin has consistently disliked me since he's been old enough to say, "I hate you," Johnny taught him to call me Aunt Crappy.

Whatever. This "Crappy Girl" thing's just a phase; I know it. She'll be back to puking on me in no time.

My favorite brother

turns 25 today! And to celebrate, since I can't be at home, I've uploaded some vintage shots of The Guck-meister.

Here's Condor sitting on the kitchen counter at our house in Burbank (Mom, check out this link! I can't believe how cool Google Maps has gotten!) with a bunch of dirt in all of his orifices. He used to eat the houseplant in the fronch room. It was there, so he ate it. It happens:

Ha. I can't look at that picture without laughing. Look at how it's all matted into his shirt, and he's like, "What."

Here's Con and I showing some love in his old room. (It looks like I have no less than 4 bows in my hair. Thanks, Mom.):


Here he is circa 2007, sharing his shit with our niece Finola:


A rare (because no one cares) Dahlke kid photo that's pre-Ellen and Neil:

another Seinfield and another Johnny reference

Johnny has had many crazy/awesome ideas over the years, one of which was to have a news broadcast that only gave good news. For example, "On Main Street today, a young woman saw an old woman drop a ten dollar bill. That young woman picked up the money, and gave it to the old woman. : )"

This report, linked from the UIUC homepage, reminded me of that idea.

Also, the series-finale-of-Seinfield parallels seem too obvious to comment on.

a message for my big brother Johnny

Yo! I don't know if you're still checking your email, so I figured I'd post this here for you. Look what showed up on my Google homepage this evening! Pretty sweet, no? I'll call you this weekend; have hella papers to grade. Love you, Nell

Here's a t-chart of my weekend:

Is it achy or achey?

nicknames

If anyone but my brothers called me "Nellie" or "sweetie" or "princess," I would not be okay with that. I'm just not the princess type, you know? Ew. But when they do it, I don't just tolerate it, I like it. Weird.

really really ridiculously good-looking

Dad, Conor, Finola, Eoin, Johnny, Neil, Mom, Michael, and me

My whole family was home this weekend for the first time that I can remember in a loooong time, not including the odd Christmas here and there. Pretty big deal. All day Saturday we mutted around in the yard and in the pool blasting Wilco albums. Is this heaven? No, it's Evergreen Park.