{"id":1416,"date":"2008-08-17T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2008-08-17T06:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2008-08-17T00:01:35","modified_gmt":"2008-08-17T06:01:35","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-76-featuring-eishas-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1416","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp&#8217;s 7 Kicks #76: Featuring Eisha&#8217;s Birthday!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to 7-Imp&#8217;s 7 Kicks, where we invite everyone to share Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week&#8212;whether book-related or not&#8212;that happened to you. And we feature some lovely illustrations. Today is special: <\/p>\n<p><center><font size=5><font color=\"000066\">IT&#8217;S EISHA&#8217;S BIRTHDAY!<\/font><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p><font size=6><marquee>HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EISHA!<\/marquee><\/font><\/p>\n<p>You <em>knew<\/em> I&#8217;d use a marquee tag for that, right? <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m throwing you a birthday tea party (with apologies to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Tenniel\"><strong>Sir John Tenniel<\/strong><\/a>):<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/eishaalice.jpg\" border=1><\/p>\n<p>Eisha, thanks for being my BFFABBBE &#8212; that&#8217;s Best Friend Forever And Best Blog Buddy Ever (expressed in my best fifth-grader manner)! And that&#8217;s BFF since&#8230;well, wow, for about seventeen years now. And my BBBE for two. <\/p>\n<p>Here we are &#8212; Then and Now: <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/bus station.jpg\" border=1><\/p>\n<p>This is an old photo I found. It has to be&#8230;.let&#8217;s see&#8230;.circa 1993 or &#8217;94? We were at a Nashville (or Knoxville?) bus station. Here are my burning questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why did we have a stranger stop and take a pic of us at a bus station?<\/li>\n<li>Who <em>is<\/em> that guy behind you and will he be pissed at me for putting his picture on the Web?<\/li>\n<li>Why didn\u2019t you talk me out of wearing leggings? <a href=\"http:\/\/gofugyourself.celebuzz.com\/\"><strong>These ladies<\/strong><\/a> would have fun with me (if I were, uh, famous).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/now.JPG\" border=1><\/p>\n<p>Us, last year at the Chicago kidlit blogger conference thingy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Also, as you know, we always celebrate our birthdays here at 7-Imp, and it&#8217;s getting more challenging each year to find a special way to surprise you. But I thought of something I wanted to try for an online birthday surprise, and my technologically-savvy husband actually made it a reality. I found this old video of us, and he managed to take it from its home on an old VHS tape and get it online. This involved moving the VCR and attaching it to my computer somehow, and it involved cables and wires and such whose functions were beyond me. When he transferred it over to YouTube so that I could share it with you, things got a bit funky. As you\u2019ll see when you watch it, when we move our mouths, it looks like they&#8217;re getting eaten by the computer screen. But this was the best we could do, not to mention I can also email you, Eisha, the original .wmv file (where things are very clear, all pre-transfer-to-YouTube).<\/p>\n<p>This video may be funny to only us, but by way of explanation to our dear 7-Imp readers: Back in college (meaning that this was also circa &#8217;93 or &#8217;94) there was this student programming event in which some video-making gig showed up. You could dress up, pick a song, and pretend to make a video. And it probably goes without saying that Eisha and I were kinda surly about it, since people around us were being WAY too enthusiastic about it all and making videos to things like Whitney Houston songs. Let&#8217;s just say we were feeling a bit contrary about the entire affair. (But, really, it was the early \u201890s, and <em>how much<\/em> can one person take of Whitney\u2019s &#8220;How Will I Know&#8221;?) But then we decided to make a video after all when it occurred to us that we could do one of Mike Myers&#8217; terribly funny (as in, <em>terrible<\/em> yet <em>funny<\/em>) beat poems from the movie <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/So_I_Married_an_Axe_Murderer\"><strong>So I Married An Axe Murderer<\/strong><\/a><\/em>.  <\/p>\n<p>The one we lip-synced was called &#8220;This Poem Sucks.&#8221; I like how we evidently felt that beat poets should have cigarettes, and so we rolled up some paper and made some that are unrealistically and entirely too big. Eisha\u2019s on the left in this Grammy-nominated performance, and the two friends in the middle&#8230;well, they shall be unnamed, since a) we&#8217;ve lost touch with them, unfortunately, and b) they could sue me for this, right? I dunno. Weak laugh. <\/p>\n<p>So, here&#8217;s the video, Eisha, for your birthday: A big &#8216;ol trip down memory lane (there\u2019s some static and stutter at the beginning, but hang in there):<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/98_ifkDn7QI\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/98_ifkDn7QI\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>MOVE OVER, POETRY FRIDAY!<\/p>\n<p>One more little gift: I know you love <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adamrex.com\"><strong>Adam Rex&#8217;s<\/strong><\/a> books and his all-around awesome-ness, and I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve seen his <a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1398\"><strong>new <em>Frankenstein<\/em> book<\/strong><\/a> yet. So, I asked him if I could post this image from that book today; Adam said sure and asked if it was because you&#8217;re a vegetarian or a lycanthrope. As far as I know, you&#8217;re just the former &#8212; but also a librarian, of course, and a Rex fan and, again, I just thought you might get a kick out of it: <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/tofillager1.jpg\" border=1><\/p>\n<p>(I think it should be a purchase-able bumper sticker like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zazzle.com\/adamrex\/products\/pt-128\"><strong>this one<\/strong><\/a>.) <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Balloons1.jpg\">So, <font size=4><font color=\"000066\">HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EISHA!<\/font><\/font> I hope it&#8217;s a great one!<\/center><\/p>\n<p><center>* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t going to list my kicks (and Eisha felt weird leaving hers in a separate draft-post, which I had asked her to do so that she wouldn&#8217;t see my surprise), but we want others to list their kicks, as usual. &#8216;Cause, seriously, if we don&#8217;t get to read your weekly kicks, it bums us out. We look forward to them <em>that<\/em> much. So maybe my kicks will encourage you to leave yours along with birthday wishes. <\/p>\n<p>Also, please join me tomorrow when I will feature today&#8217;s scheduled illustrator. She graciously let me re-schedule, since I didn&#8217;t want to distract from her illustrations with our partying down. So here are my kicks\u2026 <\/p>\n<p>1). Eisha&#8217;s birthday! I&#8217;m very grateful for her friendship. You know that friend with whom you can share things you can&#8217;t tell others? And you like so much of the same stuff that you can maybe finish each other&#8217;s sentences sometimes? Or with whom you can share, say, a really sick joke or something totally goofy and she will laugh right along with you? And she\u2019s probably the only other person you know who would laugh as hard as you\u2019re laughing? Yup, that&#8217;s her. <\/p>\n<p>2). Fudge pie (my idea, but my husband&#8212;the better baker in our home&#8212;carried it through).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/figure 81.jpg\" border=1>3). Re-discovering the PERFECT <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Figure_8_(album)\"><strong>&#8220;Figure 8&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> by Elliott Smith, a CD I wore out in 2000. I&#8217;ve been listening to it all week. <\/p>\n<p>4). Chronicle Books released <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chroniclebooks.com\/index.php?main_page=pubs_info&#038;info_uid=wave_video&#038;store=kids\"><strong>a promotional video<\/strong><\/a> for Suzy Lee&#8217;s <em>Wave<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>5). <a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1410\"><strong>My interview with Suzy Lee<\/strong><\/a> and some other 7-Imp interviews we have lined up in the near future. <\/p>\n<p>6). The excellent taste the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/000-Recordings-Hear-Before-You\/dp\/076113963X\/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1218862559&#038;sr=8-7\"><strong>this book<\/strong><\/a> has. It&#8217;s called <em>1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die<\/em>, and the bottom of the book&#8217;s cover lists some &#8220;essential music.&#8221; It totally says &#8220;Sam Phillips, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fan-Dance-Sam-Phillips\/dp\/B00005M98H\"><strong>Fan Dance<\/strong><\/a><\/em>&#8220;&#8230;Yes, fine print does matter. <\/p>\n<p>7). The other pictures of Eisha at her birthday tea party. I also have my husband to thank for photo-shopping her face in for me. I figured she should be Alice, but she could also be the Mad Hatter or the March Hare (with even more apologies to Tenniel). <\/p>\n<p>This, to be sure, is overkill, but I\u2019m having trouble comin\u2019 up with a seventh kick that\u2019s not about how cute and fun I think my kids are:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/hatterhead1.jpg\" border=1><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/marchhare.JPG\" border=1><\/p>\n<p><font size=4>What are <em>your<\/em> kicks this week?<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to 7-Imp&#8217;s 7 Kicks, where we invite everyone to share Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week&#8212;whether book-related or not&#8212;that happened to you. And we feature some lovely illustrations. Today is special: IT&#8217;S EISHA&#8217;S BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EISHA! You knew I&#8217;d use a marquee tag for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}