I Have This On VHS

Actual description of an actual movie:

A little tiny Native American figurine is placed in a cabinet by a kid. When he locks said cabinet with a special key, and then unlocks the cabinet with the same key, the little tiny Native American figurine comes to life inside the cabinet. The kid and his friend have adventures with the tiny Native American figurine they’ve brought to life. They go on to learn about the Native American’s heritage and what he left behind in his life as a little tiny figurine before he was changed to a little tiny living creature. At one point, the tiny Native American falls through a crack in the floor and is threatened by a rat. While he’s down there, the tiny Native American finds that special key which had been misplaced. Eventually, the boy turns the living tiny Native American back into a little tiny figurine.

The real-life Native American star of this movie came to my high school and performed some hardcore Native American rapping in the mid-1990s.

Wedding Pics (Click to enlarge)

This is my husband AJ. Inside the Clark County Courthouse in Vegas there are about ten different windows open at all times, ready to give Elopers a license to get married.

For your convenience, they are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. This is me in my sunglasses and brilliant white sneakers. My hair looks short in this photo for some reason, but it's not.

Here we are climbing into the limo that would whisk us away to be married at the Shalimar Wedding Chapel.

Here is some dreamy gazing for your viewing pleasure.

My shoes made us about the same height, but in bare-footed real life AJ is about an inch taller than I.

My friend Kendra made the bouquet.


Here we are back in the limo after the ceremony. Mr. and Mrs. AJ Logan. Hooray!

Rockin' the Holiday Inn Reception Hall

Reception Photos by Patty Garrison
Click here to read details of our Wedding Reception. This is a photo of my new family. Starting at top left, there's the Champion Teenager, AJ and me. Exquisite Banana is partially hidden in the center of us all. And Wunderkind the Magnificent is the fine looking young man in front. (You can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them).

These are my parents Steve and Pam w/ AJ and me.

This was the cake on our Groom's table featuring lots of Vegas glamour. Regrettably, there was no Roulette Wheel of Chips.

This is AJ and me showing all the CASH we got that night. We got lots of other non-negotiable presents too.

This is a photo of my Aunt Shelly and Uncle Gary w/ AJ and me. Later in the evening, Gary was unanimously voted "Cutest Butt" by his peers. Read story here.

This was our best kissing photo. The ones taken at our actual wedding looked totally staged.

This is my nephew Peyton, also known as The Hot Dog King. As you can tell by this picture, his cheeks are full of food.


World's Finest and Best-Looking Kids.

This is the beautiful Champion Teen manning her post at the guest book table. Can you see why her father and I are so suspicious and untrusting of teenage boys nowadays?

AJ and me cutting the cake with a plastic knife because we forgot to get one of those fancy silver serving cutters.

Colorado

To see a pretty full description of this trip, click here. This is AJ and me just before boarding the bus heading to the Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO.


Left to Right: AJ, Champion Teenager, Tina & me. Here we are getting ready to climb onto our raft.



These were the beginning of the Rocky Mountains, according to our guides.


The scenery was amazing, as you can tell.

Clichés of the East

This is the tattoo I am getting in a couple of weeks. It is a Chinese symbol for truth. It makes me want to eat my Ramen noodles with chopsticks and wash them down with a warm glass of Asahi.

I’d like to get the tattoo on the small area on the outside of my left foot located just below the ankle. But when I tell people this - especially people who already have tattoos - they wince and say, "I’d get it done above my ankle if I were you. Somewhere where there’s more meat."

I have a slight dilemma because I want to be able to hide the tattoo in my shoes if I wish. I know it’s pretty dumb to have painful body art etched onto your skin and then not want to show it off all the time. I just like to have choices. I guess if I can’t take the heat, I better stay out of the tattoo parlor. Time to buck up and become one of the loud-and-proud tattooed souls.

This weekend promises to be a lot of fun in spite of the weather forecasters’ claims that the temperature will reach above 100º F each day. For our Date Night, AJ and I are competing in a dart tournament this evening... Okay, it’s not really a tournament so much as just him and me playing darts by ourselves. Our favorite dart games are 301 and Tic-Tac-Toe. AJ wins 98.325% of the time. He is good at darts, but he is DANGEROUS at foosball. That is, he KILLS at foosball. Watch out.

And then tomorrow we’re attending a friend’s wedding that should be typically predictable and tolerably dull at first. This will be followed by a fun after party back at someone’s uncle’s house. There will be a live band and a swimming pool, I am told.

I promise to post photos from the wedding, honeymoon and Colorado white water rafting soon. Hopefully this weekend.

What Gives

Dear Green Day,

Be honest. Do you hate Tulsa? And, if so.... why? We were a loud, appreciative and sold-out crowd for you back when you performed at our Brady Theater in 2000. This was in spite of the fact that your just-released album Warning: was probably your weakest record so far.

The reason I fear you hate us so much, Green Day, is that you have since refused to return to us. The closest you seem to want to come to us is Oklahoma City. And this time around, you’re making things worse by performing on a night after which most of us will have to get up early and go to work the next morning.

Do you see my point, Green Day? What do you have against us? Do we smell? Is it our ominous praying hands? Our 3.2 beer? Are you intimidated by our enormous Tulsa Driller? That’s it, isn’t it, Green Day? You are obviously intimidated by our ever-so-slightly-homosexual giant Tulsa Driller, aren’t you?

Your homophobia is out of control, Green Day. It shows you have suppressed insecurities and self-doubts. I feel sorry for you and hope you can overcome your senseless worries.

In the meantime, I’ll be debating whether you’re worth a two-and-a-half hour drive back home in the dark on a Wednesday night. You may or may not see me next month.


Yours Truly,

Jennifer

I Am Not Named After You or Anybody Else For That Matter

I got this idea from someone else’s blog I’ve been reading.

My family lineage off the top of my head....

I know that my paternal great-grandmother was named Amanda Garrison. I don’t know her maiden name. She was married to the brilliantly-named Pleasant Green Garrison. They lived in Newton County, Arkansas. Pleasant and Amanda had a series of children, but I am not sure of all the names of those. The only one I know for sure is my paternal grandfather, whose name at birth was also "Pleasant" or "Plez," for short. For some reason, people started calling my grandfather "Clarence." They pronounced that name with a heavy Arkansas accent so that it rhymed with "Lawrence," which is ultimately the name my grandpa ended up using. He had his name legally changed to "Lawrence Alton Garrison" at some point, and that was all I ever knew him by.

The only great-grandparent I ever met was Berslie Watson. She is my dad’s mom’s mom. To my knowledge, she had children by three men in her life. Her children whose names I know include Jimmy Watson, Doyle Watson, Otis Harris, Ruth Faught and Viola (Faught) Garrison (not in that particular order). There may have been other kids, but I cannot recall them. Viola is my paternal grandmother. This side of my family mostly lived in Northwest Arkansas.

Lawrence and Viola Garrison had seven kids: Dewey, Gerene, Raymond, Sue, Stephen, Carolyn and Walter. The family moved often, mostly around Northeastern Oklahoma. Walter, the youngest child, died in his early 20's in a car accident. Lawrence and Viola passed away in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Their oldest daughter Gerene Schmidt died in late 2004. Their youngest living son, Stephen Lawrence Garrison, is my father. He was born in 1949. He and my mother have lived in Rose, Oklahoma for nearly my entire life.

My first set of maternal great-grandparents were Harley and Ethel Nantz. They had four kids that I knew of: Dixie, Francis, George and Lloyd (probably not in that order). Lloyd Otis Nantz is my maternal grandfather. This family is from Northeastern Oklahoma. My Grandpa Lloyd was the only surviving member of this clan before he passed away in 1999.

My other set of maternal great-grandparents were Mr. And Mrs. Clifford McCuistion. I use this formal-sounding title for them because I do not remember my great-grandmother’s first name off the top of my head. They had four kids: J.E., Kathleen, Thidell and Nadine. Kathleen (McCuistion) Nantz is my grandmother. Her real first name is Mildred, but she loathes that name. Today she is my only living grandparent.

Lloyd and Kathleen Nantz lived in Tulsa for the first several years of their marriage. That’s where my mom Pamela Kay (Nantz) Garrison was born in 1952. Lloyd and Kat had another daughter Shelly (Nantz) Wilson in 1966. My grandparents, my mom and my Aunt Shelly all lived in Tulsa until the late 1970s until they moved to Locust Grove, Oklahoma.

My parents Steve and Pam Garrison met and were married while they still lived in Tulsa. Their first son Stephen Lloyd, or "Stevie," was born in 1976. By the time I was born in a Tulsa hospital in the final weeks of 1978, we were Locust Grove residents. Not long after my birth, we moved to the plains of Rose, a.k.a. The Dullest/Sweetest Place On Earth. My little brother Cody was born on June 26th of 1984. Young Cody died in the fall of 2002 at the age of 18.

My father works for the Postal Service and likes to fish, play with his grandchildren, pick his guitar and go to church all the time. My mom is a third grade public school teacher who enjoys crossword puzzles, talking on the phone and going to church all the time. They are church addicts. They are also very nice, caring and friendly people.

My older brother Stevie married Patty Hagen in 1996. They had three kids: Lukas, Sydney and Peyton McKay. After living in Pryor and Locust Grove for a few years, Stevie and his wife separated. Stevie now lives back in Home-Sweet-Rose. He is a pipe welder by trade, and a soft-spoken goofball by reputation.

I have lived in various places around Mayes County since graduating high school in 1997. Two years ago I purchased the Locust Grove home of my Grandparents Lloyd and Kat Nantz for just less than $20K plus extensive termite extermination costs. I married Allan John Logan three weeks ago today (June 28th, 2005), and instantly step-mothered three sparkling white children who are known to the Internet as Champion Teenager, Exquisite Banana and Wunderkind the Magnificent.

This is my direct lineage in a slightly over-sized nutshell. Thank you.

Nothing Rhymes With Jennifer

Who cares if it’s the birthday of someone I know? HOO KAREZ?

Yes, boredom.

I often do not know what to do with all these BRAINS in my head, and that’s unfortunate because even though I’m admittedly delusional, I like to think I am capable of wearing SMARTY PANTS once in a while.

I need more money.

I need a very intense hobby.

Additionally, I need to buy some more lipstick... this time, I’ll go even frostier with my light pink shade. So frosty, it’ll freeze your lips on contact. Mine shall be the kiss of death.

My Ongoing Tattoolessness

I am now a wife, and it is a beautiful thing. Not much has changed in the mechanics of how AJ and I live and laugh together, but something is definitely different now that we’ve spoken vows and acquired that official piece of paper. It’s better and deeper. We’re more special now, I think.

The trip to Vegas was the best get-away I have ever experienced. We stayed very busy. Both of us have been to Vegas a couple times before, but none of our previous trips there can compare to the good times we had during our wedding week. We stayed on the top floor of the Stratosphere – not to be confused with staying at the very top of the Stratosphere itself. The "Stratosphere" is that space needle structure just in front of the hotel, and it doesn’t have any rooms in it. It’s basically a system of elevators that take you to a restaurant, look-out area and a cluster of amusement rides at the top. We rode the "Big Shot" which is one of those things that you strap yourself into, and it raises you up way high and shoots you back down really fast. I screamed the entirety of its duration. One side of it was shut down because a kid in line just before us had blown chunks everywhere.

We saw a few shows including Viva Las Vegas (a variety/comedy show), Bite (a topless vampire revue), the laser lights show in downtown, a very disappointing-yet-somehow-highly-recommended "dirty hypnotist" show, and we watched the freebie Bellagio fountain display. We ate big and fancy all week, but - excitingly - neither of us gained any weight.

I am now a hardcore craps player. I am completely addicted to that game. This was my first time to do any gambling other than playing the slots. I also tried roulette and that spinning wheel game where you place bets on what amount it will land on. Those were pretty boring. But craps! My new weakness. Neither of us ever got around to playing any card games.

We tired ourselves out through the week to the point that we had to take nearly one whole day of our trip just to relax and restore our energy. We ended up lounging around the hotel room and watching a "Real Gilligan’s Island" marathon on that day. Those Vegas hotels don’t offer a very good variety of TV channels because they don’t want you all holed up in your room during your stay.

Now that we’re back to reality here in OK, we’re trying to stave off apathy and let down after all the excitement we had during the month of June. Noses back to the grindstone, et cetera.

AJ and I went swimming after I got off work yesterday. It was nice and relaxing. We floated around on our Dollar General tubes as our bodies adjusted to the icy cold waters of Blue Hole creek. The water was low due to our recent lack of rain. We’re taking the kids this weekend. So, hopefully it will rain sometime before then. Blue Hole is much more fun when the water is up.

That’s all I have right now. Internet, I apologize for today’s bland writing style. I’ll try to frill it up more in the future. I’m just not feeling very witty or unorthodox today.