Month: May 2002

You’ve gotta check out this link, sent to me by reader Kim. If I had the time, you KNOW I’d be doing up a site like this for Miz Poo. Hee! The Vampire Beast series especially cracked me up.

The smell of Febreeze is very strong right now, and I know not why. Who the hell’s been spraying the Febreeze? Anyone? Bueller?…

So, the parents arrived all safe and sound and ten minutes early yesterday. For once, I was actually there waiting when they walked out through the security thing, which is unusual – usually they’re almost to baggage claim before I come wandering up to find them. I hadn’t been to the airport since last August, so I was surprised to see that you can’t park directly in front of the terminal anymore – you used to be able to – and there were several cops keeping watch from different posts by the doors. We couldn’t go to the gate to meet my parents as they came off the plane – without a ticket you can’t get past the security gate – but it was interesting to watch people go through security. I’m so used to seeing the security people all but taking a nap, that it was startling to see them not only awake, but aggressively eyeballing anyone who went through. Almost every man had to be wanded, because change in their pockets or their belt buckles set off the alarm.

And in fact, my mother was randomly selected at the gate in Atlanta for a going-over by the wand. Here’s where I’d insert a snarky remark about the likelihood of a doddering 60 year-old white lady being a terrorist threat, but you know? I won’t.

And here’s where I’d insert a snarky comment about the likelihood of the Huntsville/ Decatur airport being a terrorist target, but again I won’t. B’sides, Redstone Arsenal actually makes it possible that this area could be a target, so I’m not sending trouble an engraved invitation by making stupid comments, no sir I’m not.

Here’s the other Gatlinburg story I forgot to tell Tuesday. You’ll recall that I mentioned that we rode the Sky Lift to the top of the mountain and took 64,000 pictures of the purty view, yes? Well, as we were standing there taking pictures of the view, I said "Oh, I want a picture of the two of us!", and I ordered the spud to take a picture of Fred and I, and then Fred took ten thousand other pictures of the view, and then we were thinking that we’d spent enough time looking at and taking pictures of the view, there was nothing in the crappy, over-priced little gift shop, so we thought we’d head for the Sky Lift and go back to the bottom.

As we TURNED to walk out of the observation area, I heard Fred say "Oh my god," sotto voce.

You didn’t know I knew words like sotto voce, did you? I got the cul-chuh going on sometimes, mmm-hmm.

"Wha-" I began, and then it was upon me. The second darkest, nastiest, most horrific stank I’ve ever experienced. It was a stank that coated the inside of my nostrils, and was so thick and noxious that I could actually TASTE it.

Some asshole had dropped a fart-bomb and then simply walked away from it, letting all in the area be blasted unexpectedly by the stench. Coughing, covering my mouth and nose, I half-ran from the area, hoping to outrun the odor. Fred, catching a glimpse from the couple standing a few feet away from us, did his best to disavow all knowledge.

"It wasn’t US," he promised. To which they responded by asking Fred if he’d take a picture of them, so perhaps they believed him.

But, man. How NASTY is that, to let something like that loose in a crowd? You could kill someone by doing that, you know. Gah.

That particular experience reminded me of the time Fred and I did some Christmas shopping in Boaz – it was probably almost 6 years ago, actually, because it was my first Christmas here – and we were wandering through some no-name toy store, looking for presents to buy the spud. We headed all unknowingly down an aisle of kids’ books, and walked face-first into a cloud of rankness that to this day makes me want to gag when I think about it. I honestly thought that perhaps someone had lost control of their bowels all over the floor, and I was watching where I was walking – and trying not to throw up – because god knows I didn’t want to step in anything.

Fred was as grossed out as I, and as we whispered to each other, a guilty-looking man with a half-smirk on his face walked by us. I couldn’t help myself – I glanced at the ass of his pants to see if there’d been a loss of bowel control, but saw no evidence of the sort.

You know what? If you’re going to drop a bomb like that in a public place, at least try to get AWAY from people, instead of doing it in the middle of a crowd or in the middle of a crowded store.

People are so nasty sometimes.

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Before I get to the interesting part of the entry, there are two things I need to let y’all know about. First off, once my parents and the spud have left to go to Maine next week, I’m going to switch hosts, so the site may be down for a day while that’s going on. I’m going to be sure to do it over the weekend, though, so it shouldn’t be too bad unless there’s some horrible problem I don’t know about. In any case, the notify list will always know what’s going on.

Secondly, much as I love and adore each and every one of you on the notify list and while it’s been a great deal of fun making fun of those not ON the notify list, I’m going to have to go back to having the list hosted elsewhere, because between the additions to the list and the bounces I’m getting, it’s taking up way too much time. I’m going to try out Notify List this time around, which doesn’t add advertisements to the messages like that horrible Topica, and it doesn’t require your first and last name, your bra size and your firstborn before it’ll let you be on a list, like Yahoo Groups (or whatever the hell they’re called these days). Of course, those already on the notify list already know this, because I informed them when I sent out today’s entry, but I suppose it bears repeating.

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There are two Gatlinburg stories that need to be told, which I completely forgot to include in Tuesday’s entry. So I’ll tell y’all one today and one tomorrow, because I’m far too stressed to have to think up new entries between running around and doing last-minute cleaning, and visiting with the ‘rents, m’kay?

The first concerns our trip around the Arts and Crafts Community on Saturday. Our first stop was at a small general-type store, which was next door to a gallery. We parked in the gallery parking lot, since the other parking lot was full, and since it’s rude to park in a parking lot if you’re not going to visit the establishment it belongs to, we went into the gallery for a quick look around.

There were a lot of Gatlinburg scenery pictures, and Fred spent some time looking through the bin of $15 prints, showing me a couple that he really liked. At one point, he said to me, "Do you suppose that if you like one of the pictures that’s already framed with a frame you don’t like, you can get it without?" I told him I didn’t know, and we continued looking around. From the time we stepped into the gallery through most of the time we were there – less than ten minutes, I’d guess – there was a whole crowd of people asking questions of the woman running the place. As we headed for the door, they all seemed to simply evaporate into thin air. Fred turned to her as we were within arm’s reach of the door and said "Is it possible to get a picture without the frame?"

I don’t know what he was thinking.

She latched onto him like a burr, told him that it was, indeed, possible, and then asked if there was a particular picture he had in mind. Trapped, he looked around wild-eyed, and claimed that there was one he had really liked, but couldn’t remember where it was. Frantically, he began running back and forth, looking at pictures, ruminating out loud whether it was in this room or that, and she dogged his every step.

"Where was it, Bessie?" he asked, trying to draw me into the trap with him, so he could perhaps trip me and then run away, leaving me there for her to latch onto.

I, of course, had no fucking clue what he was talking about, and said "I only remember the two pictures in the bin." Now, you’ll keep in mind that the pictures in the bin were $15 each. The paintings and pictures on the wall were $200 and more.

"No…" he said, sinking further into the quagmire. "It was hanging on the wall."

"Well," I said, wanting to get the hell out of there, "I DON’T KNOW. You didn’t point it out to me." I flipped through the bin of pictures and held out the one he’d shown me earlier. "You liked this one, remember?" I was reduced to speaking to him like he was a brain damaged infant. Finally – FINALLY – he grasped at the straw I was offering.

"Well," he said, "Maybe it was one of those pictures. Which one do you like?" I chose one, we paid for it, and were the hell out of there.

The woman stared sadly after us, her dreams of a big commission going up in smoke. When we were out of sight, I turned to Fred and said "Have you LOST your mind? What the fuck was THAT all about?", to which he could only shrug and laugh weakly, giddy with the victory of slipping out of there without spending hundreds of dollars on a so-so painting.

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Is it wrong that this morning, while I had VH-1 on to listen to while I was cleaning, I heard "The queen has been on the throne for 50 years." and I giggled like a 12 year-old boy? On the throne for 50 years. Hee!

So yesterday, as the notify list already knows, I was in a bad, BAD mood all day. Probably because I spent all day doing things that did NOT include getting the house in decent shape before my parents get here. Once I sent out the notify, though, I went around and cleaned the inside of most of the downstairs windows, scrubbed the floorboards, and immediately felt better.

But DAMN were the windows nasty. BLACK stuff was coming off of them, and I don’t know why they were so gross. Maybe because this is the first time I’ve cleaned them since we moved in last August.

Oh, don’t give me that disapproving look.

The spud had an appointment for a haircut at 11, so we left here about twenty minutes before that, and I cooled my heels while she had her hair shampooed, cut, and blown dry. I didn’t get a picture of it, because the camera’s still smoking from all the pictures I took in Gatlinburg, but I will one of these days. Maybe. Don’t hold your breath. It looks cute, though. You’ll just have to believe me.

While we were on our way to the hair-cutting place (Please. "Beauty Salon" sounds so fucking pretentious. Of course, they charge pretentious prices, so maybe I should just go with it), I glanced over at the spud, and realized that apparently I rarely look directly at the child. She had a creeping crud type rash around her mouth.

"Did you WASH YOUR FACE today?" I demanded. I swear to god, if given her choice, she’d never bathe, never wash her hair, never brush her teeth, and would just be a big walking pile of stank. And some people think that girls are cleaner than boys. Ha! The spud told me she had, and when I asked what was wrong with her face (nice, huh?) she told me that the rash she’d had had gotten worse. So I called Fred and asked him to call and make a doctor’s appointment for her, the sooner the better.

She’s always had a problem with eczema, for which she uses Lidex ointment when it flares up, but I don’t recall it ever showing up around her mouth. Fred got her an appointment for 2:10 that same afternoon, and so after running home, eating lunch, and working on the Entry That Would Not End, I was back out the door. After a quick stop at the movie store to rent Harry Potter, we hit the doctor’s office.

After a relatively short visit there, it was determined that the spud’s eczema had yeast in it, and we were told to stop with the steroid ointment (okay, how stupid am I? I didn’t realize the stuff had steroids in it!) and start using Lamisil, and it should start clearing up in a few days.

Okay, the cats? Are freakin’ me out. The last two nights, wherever I am after Fred goes to bed, that’s where they are. Monday night, they all stayed in the bedroom with me. Tuesday night, I came down on the computer to balance the checkbook, and they all came down and snoozed in the computer room until I went upstairs, and then they followed me up. It’s creepy, because they never used to do that. It makes me wonder if I’m about to die, and they all know it, and want to be there to celebrate.

Fred laughed when I suggested the idea, and said that the only way I’d die is if Tubby decided to sit on my chest.

I’m keeping an eye on that one, believe you me.

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Edited 9/10/05: Sorry, they’ve been taken down), for you to admire. Sizing and naming those damn things was a job in and of itself. But I did it even though it took for-fucking-ever, because I love you. We left home around 10:30 Thursday morning, and with only a few stops on the way – Subway for lunch, a pee stop or two – we were in Gatlinburg by – I think – around 5. We hauled our bags up to the room – on the third freakin’ floor. Gah – admired the view from the room, and then walked down into town. I don’t remember which stores we hit, because that was on Friday and this is Tuesday and I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night. I do know that we ate at Blaine’s Bar and Grill for dinner. After that, we wandered around the town some more, stopped to buy junk at the candy store (mmmmm), and then headed back to the room, where we ate some of that candy we’d bought, watched TV, and looked at maps of the area, trying to decide how to get to Abrams Falls, which we were planning to hike first thing Friday morning. Fred bitched several times about how he couldn’t believe I was "making" him hike, and I told him he could drop the spud and I off and come back for us, which he wasn’t willing to do, and as I was looking at the map, I realized that there was a shorter hike – 2.6 miles round trip – to a different waterfall, and I offered to hike that one instead, which His Majesty agreed to. We didn’t get to sleep until late, and neither of us slept very well, because we’re not used to sleeping in the same bed, and I move around an awful lot, which was bothering Fred. Fred got up at some point and went for a walk/ run through the town. What kind of person actually exercises while on vacation, I ask you? Freak. Then he came back to the room, settled into the chair in our room, and let me sleep until about 8. We finally found the beginning of the trail to Laurel Falls sometime around (I think) 9:15 or so, and began walking. I was thrilled – THRILLED, I tell you! – to find that the path was practically vertical the entire way. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. It was, however, hillier than I’d expected, especially for a walk rated "easy." We finally made it to the top, however, and took 25,000 pictures of the waterfall. I love waterfalls, have I mentioned? We wandered around, checked out to view, and a few minutes later, we headed back from whence we’d come. We stopped to look over the vertical drop to the side of the path, and the spud kept edging closer and closer to the edge, which I responded to by grabbing her wrist, lest she trip and fall. She’s as graceful as her mother, y’know. I finally yelled "Stay away from the edge, damnit!" at her, and she did, for the most part. At one point on our trip back down the mountain, I had stopped to take a picture of something. Fred, who was slightly ahead of me, stopped as well, and turned to say something snotty, I’m sure. As he turned, he overbalanced and his arms started windmilling, his leg flailed about in the air, and he leaned toward the vertical drop. We were so high up that you couldn’t see the bottom of the drop. So I gasped in horror. With half his body hanging over the side of the mountain, his arms still flying about in the air, his right leg still trying to find purchase, and the foot on the ground halfway off the path, and his entire body about to plunge off the mountain, to be ripped and broken to shreds as he rolled to the bottom, Fred’s response when I gasped was to laugh at me. Yeah, laugh it up, dead boy. He finally found his footing again, and except for a few bitchy comments he made about all the picture I stopped and took, we made it back to the bottom without anything else happening. It took us a little over an hour to hike there and back, instead of the 2 1/2 hours the map suggested we allow. Ha! Next time, we’re definitely going to head for Abrams Falls. After our morning excursion, we went back to the hotel and cooled off and snoozed for a little while, then headed out for lunch. The last few times we went to Gatlinburg, we’d wanted to try out a restaurant called The Alamo, but it always seemed too busy, and we don’t like to have to wait around for seats, because we’re the impatient sort. So, we decided to show up for lunch, right after they open at 11. Not only was there no waiting, but we were practically the only people there for the first half hour or so. And the food, though expensive, was worth every penny. The sourdough rolls were so good that we bought a dozen of them to bring back to the room with us, and the side salads were excellent as well. Fred had steak, and the spud and I had hamburgers, and they were all very good. Two thumbs up for The Alamo! In fact, it was so good that we went back there for lunch on Saturday. Once we left The Alamo, we decided to drive into Pigeon Forge to check out our usual shops. We got back to Gatlinburg around 3, and I headed up to the room to take a nap, while Fred and the spud walked down into town again. They got back to the room sometime after 5, and we ordered pizza for dinner.

And it sucked. Really, really sucked. It was like our punishment for having a really good lunch. I slept well Friday night, until 3 am, when Fred started snoring like a madman, and there was nothing I could do to get him to stop. The bastard. After an hour of laying awake, listening to him snore, and hating him, I did a double-somersault with a half-twist, making the bed shake like hell, which stopped his snoring long enough so that I could get back to sleep. We got up, I dunno, at some point later that morning, and headed out to drive around the Arts and Crafts Community. I was in need of a trunk – preferably cedar – to put in my bedroom for storing stuff – and I thought perhaps one of the many arts and crafts places would have one. We drove up and around the loop, stopping at several places, with no luck. Looking at the map, I thought that perhaps a store called The Chair Place (or something like that) would have trunks, so we stopped there. It turned out that it was a custom furniture place, and the lady running the front desk went out back to get the guy who makes the furniture, so that he could give us some idea of what it would cost to have a custom trunk made. He and Fred chatted for several minutes – a trunk this big, made out of cherry, lined with cedar – and then he thought about it for a few minutes, scribbled down some figures, and told us it would cost around $600. I thought Fred was going to swallow his teeth, but he covered nicely, thanking the guy and taking his card. We finished out the loop, not finding anything like what I wanted, and I shrugged, said "Guess we’ll have to wait and check out the stores when we get home", and turned to head for The Alamo for lunch. As we turned onto the main road, I glanced to my left to look at a small string of stores. "Hey!" I said. "’Cedar chests made here’!", and we decided to drive back and check it out once we’d eaten lunch. Unlike the day before, we had to wait for about fifteen minutes to be seated, because they’d just seated several very large parties – one of which appeared to be a wedding reception – and they were caught by surprise and understaffed. A man in a tuxedo jacket and jeans, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, looking very much like a groom. We got tired of waiting, but since we knew how good the food was, we kept our mouths shut and just waited. See, that’s how restaurants do it – they suck you in with the good food, and then keep you waiting, because you know it’s worth it. After lunch, we drove back to the store, bought a cedar trunk, put it in the back of the Jeep, and drove back to the hotel. Fred bitched the entire way about how our room was going to smell like cedar all the time, and it would smell like a hamster cage, yadda yadda yadda. Of course, he complained about it AFTER we’d bought it, so he was shit out of luck. I figured if it got really bothersome, we could stick it in the guest bedroom. Actually, either the smell has faded a little, or we’ve gotten used to it, so it’s all good. Oh, let’s see. What did we do for the rest of Saturday? We parked the car at the hotel and walked downtown, is what we did. We poked through some of the shops, we played some skeeball, and we took the ski-lift ride to the top of the mountain, which was really pretty cool. Make sure you check out the pictures, because the view from the top of the mountain is awesome. I told Fred that next time we go to Gatlinburg, we’ll have to do the ski lift to the top at night, because I’m sure Gatlinburg at night is a pretty awesome sight. Then we ate dinner at Blaine’s Bar and Grill, wherein I got very bitchy and annoyed, because we had to wait forEVER for our waitress to mosey over and take our drink order, and I was dying of thirst. She brought my Diet Coke, we placed our order, and two seconds later my glass was empty, and I was still dying of thirst. She didn’t come back and didn’t come back, and I was slowly drying into a mummy, and frantically sucking on ice cubes to slake the thirst. "I can actually FEEL her tip going down," I snarked to Fred. When it had been forever and a day, I had a flash of inspiration. We’d gotten bottles of water at some point earlier in the day, and Fred and I had finished ours, but the spud hadn’t. I grabbed her mostly full bottle of water and dumped it in my glass of ice, and began guzzling. Of course, as soon as I’d done that, the waitress showed up to refill our glasses. She left the pitcher with us, and after I finished my water, I slurped down another glass of Diet Coke. Our food eventually showed up, and by then I was in better spirits. We ate and then booked out of there. After a bit more of wandering the town, we headed back to the room, where we stayed for the rest of the evening, watching crappy TV and eating fudge and pecan turtles (mmmmm!). We left around 9:30 Sunday morning and made excellent time home, arriving here around 1ish. We ate lunch, and spent the rest of the day hanging out, watching TV, and reading. All in all, a really good vacation. Though we couldn’t wait to get home, we both wished that we’d had one more day – which is a good sign. A bad sign would be driving home as fast as you could muttering "I’m NEVER going back to that hellhole ever AGAIN!" And now is the part where I show you pictures of everything I bought while on vacation (you can see Fred’s entry to see all the t-shirts he bought for himself): A little kitty sculpture. Y’all know how much I like those orange tiger kitties, right? An addition to my Quarry Cats collection. This one is Calypso.

And this one is Caz. The goofy grin is a little creepy, yet somehow cute at the same time, no? There’s a store that sells nothing but magnets in Gatlinburg. I LOVE magnets. I also love kitties. Whee! Fred chose this one for me. Fred pointed this one out to me, as well. I found this one on my own. This one’s in honor of the Tubman. img src=”http://bitchypoo.com/2002/May/May28New09Sm.jpg” width=”250″ height=”206″ border=”0″/> The cedar chest. It holds a lot more than you’d think. The cats are a little freaked out by it, but I imagine that soon enough they’ll take turns sitting on it so they can look out the window it’s sitting under. We bought this picture during our tour of the Arts and Crafts Community. To hang on the laundry room wall above the litter box. A set of kitty-paw-print coasters.

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Princess Nance, who is turning 29ish (give or take) tomorrow! I hope you’re planning on marking the occasion with style and panache, people. I’m dating this entry the 24th, but I really wrote it on the 23rd, but I’m so wonderful that I wanted to provide some Bitchypoo magic for y’all while I was gone. Just thought I’d let you know, in the interest of full disclosure. I SO want one of these cans of cat repellant. Y’all MUST go check it out, and be sure you click on the link to see it in action (it’s near the bottom of the page). I laughed my ass off when I saw that. There’s just nothing funnier than a startled cat, people. Trust me on that. I’m dying to buy a can, but there’s not really anywhere in the house we don’t allow the cats. I thought of putting a can in the corner where Fancypants likes to shit, but they have to walk by that corner to get to the litter box, and I don’t want them all scared away from the litter box, because LORD would it reek in this house. Not that it doesn’t already. The dishwasher guy finally came the other day, and after much poking around, he discovered that, in fact, the part he thought was bad wasn’t bad at all, it was just fine. The problem was that a little plastic piece had come off of our little cutting board, gotten through two of the three filters our dishwasher has, and become stuck in the third filter, blocking anything else from getting through. So he removed the little plastic piece, and the dishwasher worked just fine. He apologized profusely, I let him live, and then he left. After dinner, the spud – THRILLED to have the dishwasher working again – put the dirty dishes in it, and then tried to start it, couldn’t get it started, and told me. I, figuring she was doing the airheaded teenager thing, told her to leave it, and that I would start it when I came back downstairs. Guess what? Despite several minutes of messing around with it, we couldn’t get it to set for anything other than rinse (there are several options – regular wash, pots and pans, china, and rinse only). So the dishwasher guy came BACK again today to mess with it for about ten minutes, and it appears to be fixed for real. A girl can dream. So, I was reading the most recent US Weekly last night, and I came across a picture of Rosie O’Donnell from high school. "Hey," I said to Fred. "I think Rosie’s wearing my Junior Prom dress! And she kinda looks like me." Fred doesn’t think Rosie’s cute at all, so he disagreed with me, but y’all judge for yourselves : The dresses have a very definite similarity, don’tcha think? And it looks like Rosie and I both had been smacked upside the head by the Perm Fairy. And while I’m sharing pictures, here’s one the spud took with her I-Zone camera. It came out pretty well, considering. I like the way you can’t really see anything but his big, green eyes, and part of his red collar. It’s cooler looking in person, but this was the best I could get it to scan. Speaking of the spud, I made her an appointment to have her hair cut, at her request. "But spud," I said sternly. "If grammy wants to have your hair cut short this summer, you need to tell her NO if you don’t want to!" Because my mother ALWAYS tries to have the spud’s hair cut short while she’s in Maine for the summer (while the spud’s in Maine for the summer, that is. My mother’s in Maine during all seasons), and then the spud spends the rest of the year growing it out. I also need to see if I can’t get the spud in for a dental checkup and cleaning, which I noticed – while we were eating lunch at Applebee’s – she really needs. It’s been a while since her last dental visit, and I need to get us back into the routine of regular appointments. Yes. We had lunch at Applebee’s. I did NOT, this time, have the oriental chicken salad, but the fried (shhhh…) chicken salad. Hey! At least it was the half salad and not the big one! And I only used about a third of the dressing they brought out with my salad. I consider that pretty good. I also had apple chimicheesecakes for dessert. Shhh. And damn it was good. It was about thirty below zero in that damn restaurant, so I was glad I’d brought a jacket with me, and told the spud to do the same. And even though we were bundled in our jackets, it was still so cold that I was sitting with my arms crossed, trying to warm up. I hate it when restaurants not only have air conditioning, but are aggressively cold to the point where the tip of your nose about freezes off. When I’m queen of the world, having a restaurant too cold will be punishable by death. You’ve been warned. Okay, that’s it. I really am out of here now, off to finish vacuuming and packing, and checking to make sure that Fancypants hasn’t left a big pile of shit anywhere for Fred’s dad to find when he comes to feed the cats. See you on the flip side! ]]>

Ignore the glare off the windshield, if you would. These are a couple of the houses we always pass as we drive toward downtown Hartselle, and I just love them to death. The tall house on the left side of the picture always catches my eye. Tell me. Does this look like my dream house, or what? Big covered porches, and painted a bright yellow. If this baby ever goes up for sale, Fred’s going to be sorry! The dollar store! That’s a definite plus in Hartselle’s favor. Actually, is there a town in existence that DOESN’T have a dollar store or two? LOVE the dollar store. There’s a story behind this one (isn’t there always?). We were sitting at a red light, and sitting in a truck at a red light on a street perpendicular to the one we were on was a total bubba-in-training. With a ‘do rag on his head. He saw the camera in my hand – I was looking to see if there were primroses on the side of the road – and thought I was going to take his picture. I hadn’t noticed him until he started giving me the eye and looking all pleased, so when he looked away, I DID aim the camera in his direction, but before I could take his picture, he looked back at me, and since I was too much of a wimp to actually snap his pic, I pointed the camera up into the trees, and just the light turned green and Fred took off, I clicked this picture. The more I look at it, the more I like it, to the point where I made it my wallpaper. What an unfortunate last name. And what a brave man for running for Commissioner anyway.
I love the view as we approach the farm. The fields, the big trees, the greenery. It’s gorgeous. Dude, pigs! Little baby piglets! The pink one (I said "He’s almost as big as Tubby!") stopped and rubbed up against the fence to scratch his back right after I took this picture. The rest of the herd. Or is it a pack? A pack o’ pigs? The one in the middle of the pack had quite an itch, apparently, because he kept rubbing up against the other piglets to scratch it. The dawg. Cows! These are the buildings where the chickens roost when they’re not busy running around in the pasture eating bugs and grain. Fred was driving pretty fast and didn’t want to slow down, so I snapped the picture too quickly, and only got part of a horse. One of these days I’ll perfect the art of snapping pictures from a moving vehicle. Primroses! One of these days I’ll get Fred to actually stop so I can get out and take pictures of them. I forgot to take the camera into the gas station bathroom with me this time, so here’s one taken in the mirror in the Jeep while I was waiting for Fred to come out. Downtown Hartselle. LOVE this town! What a cute little red Mustang convertible, isn’t it? And for sale! Too bad it’s not yellow. Note in the background that there’s an old-style Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, from back in the day before they started calling themselves "KFC", in hopes that people would forget that it’s fried food. Mmmm.. heart attack in a bucket! That’s it for today, but there’s an entry up for tomorrow – just click the "next" button at the bottom. You can read it now, or wait ’til tomorrow. Hell, it’ll practically be like I’m still here! ]]>

I don’t need ALL these books, do I? Surely not!, but I never want to take anything off the list, because I want to read ’em all! I’m a greedy book-buying bitch, is what I am. And it’s probably a good thing that I keep very few of the books I’ve read, because we’d need three rooms to contain that many books. Of course, as many books as I have to read – a large bookcase mostly full – I still get all antsy when one of my favorite writers hasn’t published anything in a while. See: Sue Grafton. Edna Buchanan. Carol O’Connell. Andrew Vachss. Upon second look, I see that – according to Amazon – all of the above authors except for Sue Grafton will be publishing books in the fall. Dude. I HAVE TO WAIT ‘TIL THE FALL?! You know, I know what a horrible, selfish bitch I am. There are people out there who can’t read, and I’m in hysterics because I have to wait until June for the next Janet Evanovich. But… but, I have such little pleasure left in my life. Can’t do the crah-cocaine, can’t have the sugared-up Co-Cola, can’t eat the junk food, OH WHY LORD, WHYYYYY MUST I WAIT UNTIL JUNE 18TH FOR THE NEXT EVANOVICH?! Moving on. Looks like Ted Nugent shot off his mouth, talking shit about Ozzy, and then backed right the fuck down. What’s worse, an asshole, or an asshole who won’t stand behind what he says? If you’re going to say something inflammatory and then the wife of the subject of what you said threatens to kick your ass (hee! Go, Sharon!), be a grownup and stand behind what you said, instead of backing down and stammering "Whuh-whuh-whuh-what I REALLY meant was…" Of course, I wouldn’t want Sharon after me, either. God I love that woman. I was paying bills yesterday, one of which was a payment for a renewal of my suscription to US magazine, and as I tore the part of the bill off to toss it in the trash, I glanced at it, and saw this: We’re delighted to have you as a subscriber. Delighted. They’re DELIGHTED. Not just happy to have me aboard, not mildly pleased, but delighted. I got a mental image of my payment reaching US headquarters, and a whistle going off. B. Wilck (who "signed" the letter) running around screaming "Robyn resubscribed! Robyn resubscribed!" and bursting into the office of the managing editor bellowing "Robyn! Robyn resubscribed!", and the editor screaming "Thankyoujeezus!", and collapsing with relief into his fine leather $5,867,0477 chair, secure in the knowledge that US will continue to entertain me and provoke pissed-off rants from me. Delighted my ass. I should call customer service (800-283-3956, for your information) and say "Hi, it’s Robyn. Look, I think it’s about time you put Vic Mackey’s ass on the cover. And while you’re at it, he should be shirtless, mm’kay? Huh? Robyn. R-O-B-Y-N. Anders0n. With an "o". My address? Look, missy, I don’t NEED the attitude. This letter I received PERSONALLY from B. Wilck says that y’all are thrilled beyond fucking belief to have me as a subscriber, and I FUCKING WELL SUGGEST you start acting like it, damn it! Well… No. No, it doesn’t actually say "fucking delighted." It just says "delighted", but I could read the underlying message. Look, while I have you on the phone, could you ask Jen and Brad to give me a call? I’m having a little soiree next month, and I’d like to invite them. I’d invite you too, if you’d can the attitude!" Sh’yeah. Like I’d ever use the word "soiree". We went and picked up our 8 free-range chickens yesterday, stopped to pick up Subway for dinner, and were home around 5:30. That means it only took us two hours this time around. Whee! Of course I took the camera with us, and of COURSE I took a buttload of pictures, but I think I’m going to put them all in an entry tomorrow, so that I don’t have to think up a decent entry before we leave for Gatlinburg. Before I go, though, here are some pictures for reader Linda, who emailed and requested pictures of Tubby as a kitten. We adopted him when he was two or three months old, and I’m pretty sure most of these pictures are around that time. The pictures aren’t that great because the camera we had at the time wasn’t the greatest, but you get the idea of what he looked like. He was but a slip of a kitten! Who’d have ever thought he’d turn out to be the size he is today? And while I’m sharing pictures, here’s one where he’s a little older that always cracks me up. A fly had gotten into the house and was buzzing around the light, and he was doing his best to figure out how to catch it. Ah, Tubby. Gotta love him! —–]]>

Vic Mackey last night. Oh. My. Heck. (To quote the most annoying phrase in the world) Sadly, there was no actual sex in the dream. I think that, with only one or two exceptions, my dreams don’t involve the sex act – they involve the promise of the sex act. All things leading up to it, the flirting, the teasing, a kiss or two, and then invariably someone does a double-flip-with-a-twist across my ribs, and I wake up all frustrated. I always try to get back into the dream, but it never works. Wahhhh! For Teresa, who (back when I was taking picture requests) asked for a shot of what’s under my bed, here it is: A cat toy, a bunch of cat hair, and a couple of earplugs. I’d store stuff under the bed, but the cats like to hang out under there and would probably trash anything that got in their way. I’m sitting here waiting for the guy to come fix the dishwasher. We’re coming up on a month since it stopped working, and it’s getting REALLY old. I’m sure those of you without a dishwasher are reallllly feeling sorry for me, aren’t you? I know that when I wash the dishes, they get clean, because I use the hottest possible water (and protect my hands with big yellow rubber gloves), but the spud lacks a little in the elbow grease department. I grabbed a plate the other day, and the top part – the part you eat off of – was clean, but the bottom part was greasy from who knows what. Bleh. Anyway, the dishwasher man is supposed to show up between noon and 3:30, and despite my hopes, it doesn’t appear that he’ll be showing up early the way he did before. This, of course, is because we have plans for this afternoon – time to go pick up this month’s supply of free-range chickens – and no doubt he’ll show up exactly at 3:30 and then spend two hours fixing the dishwasher, putting a wrench in our plans to leave as soon as Fred gets off work. Grrr. I spent about an hour this morning cleaning the kitchen – which doesn’t get cleaned often enough, believe you me – and dusting the entire downstairs. Fred’s parents will be feeding the cats while we’re gone, and I’d like the house to look at least halfway decent. Possibly even three-quarters decent. I was going to vacuum the entire downstairs this morning as well, but I think I’m going to wait until Thursday morning and do it last thing before we leave. The queen of procrastination, that’s me. Today’s the spud’s last day of school, and it’s a half day for her. She should be home any minute now, and I’d take her out to lunch to celebrate, except for the whole waiting-for-the-repairman thing. When she got home from school yesterday, she said "Do I have to go to school tomorrow?", with the hopes that I’d say "Oh, it’s the last day of school. Just sleep in!" But I made her go anyway. Something on the floor? Sit on it. —–]]>

Saturday Night Live – which I actually happened to watch, live, back in The Day when I could manage to keep my eyes open past 10 pm, and I remember thinking "Is that part of a skit?" Anyway, they went on to say that a few weeks later at a concert with someone-or-another (I can see his face, but I can’t think of his name), she was soundly booed by the audience and left the stage in tears. Oh! Kris Kristofferson, that’s who the concert was with. Or he was there, because they showed him giving her a comforting hug. Anyway, this cracks me up why? Well, because – DUH – if you’re going to deliberately do something to piss people off, you don’t get to be surprised when people are, y’know, pissed off. And further, you don’t get to be indignant and hurt when they act pissed off and boo you off the stage. Not, of course, that I’m any big fan of the pope, being a lapsed Protestant and all. To me, the pope is a doddering old man who’s doing his best to hold women down so that they’ll understand their "place" in the world. See? Now, I said something derogatory about the pope, so if I get a nasty email from one of y’all, I don’t get to be surprised or indignant, and I will be neither of those. I will, however, get to read it aloud to Fred so that we can mock it mercilessly before I delete it. And you don’t get to be surprised or indignant at THAT, because you’ve been warned. Where was I? Oh yeah, so thinking about the pope – who was all over CNN while I was reading the latest People Saturday morning – made me think of a time when I was probably fifteen or so and accused my father of thinking that he (my father, not the pope) was perfect. "No one is perfect," my father responded. "Except the pope." There was a long, long pause while I digested what he’d said, and then I realized something. "You," I told my father, "Are PROTESTANT."

And then we began a long discussion about whether or not the pope ever farted. My father, holding fast to the thought that the pope was a bastion of perfection, insisted that he did not. I, on the other hand, insisted that he must. I’m not sure where I got the idea that farting is a sign of imperfection. No one ever claimed the pope wasn’t human, did they?

* * *

Man. I’ve been sniffling and sneezing and blowing my nose all day long. I thought it was allergies – exacerbated by the bike ride I took this morning – but I took a Claritin, and it didn’t do much for me. If I’m developing a fucking COLD three days before we leave for Gatlinburg, I’m going to be mighty pissed. HEAR ME, lungs and nose? MIGHTY PISSED.

* * *

I was thrilled to finally receive my Mother’s Day present on Friday (you’ll recall Fred accidentally chose the wrong date when he ordered the flowers, and then there was a big kerfuffle with the 1800Flowers people screwing up), and the flowers are gorgeous: Fred went fishing Saturday afternoon, and when he came home, he had a bucket o’ crickets as bait, which was left over from what he’d bought. Does that sentence make any sense at all? I fear not, but I’m succumbing to cold-related fuzzy-headedness, so I’m going to let it stand as it is. Anyway, he came home with a bucket o’ crickets, and left it on the living room floor for the cats to sniff at. Miz Poo was the most interested, and kept sticking her paw in the bucket, while the other cats (except for Spot, who was probably upstairs hiding under the bed and contemplating having diarrhea for a week) kept a safe distance. And since you’ve now had your daily fill of cat pictures, I’m going to retire to the couch with a large cup of Diet Coke, a good book, and Poo.]]>

MOTHERFUCKER, BECAUSE I WAS WHISPERING IT DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EAR not a one of them was looking at me, or indicating at all that they could hear what I’d said. Odd, since I WAS TOLD I WAS SCREAMING IT AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. So there. 1. What shampoo do you use? L’Oreal Kids extra gentle extra conditioning Burst of Cherry Almond. It smells SO good. 2. Do you use conditioner? What kind? Always. Most of the time I use L’Oreal Kids Burst of Grape conditioner, but occasionally I use Pantene Pro-V instant hair quencher. Which I only have because when I bought it, I thought it was leave-in conditioner, and only after I walked around with greasy-looking hair for most of a day did I realize otherwise. 3. When was the last time you got your hair cut? I think it’s been about 10 weeks. I’m still growing it out, and I’m just not up for sitting in the chair for two hours to have my hair colored, and having to spend $85 for the pleasure, so Fred colored my hair for me last weekend, and it’s all good. 4. What styling products do you use? On days when I don’t feel like spending half an hour blowing it out straight, I put Clairol Frizz Control serum and Thermasilk mousse in it, point the blow dryer at it long enough to convince my hair to part where I want it, and let it air-dry. On the rare days when I DO feel like messing with it, I put V05 Straight Hair and Clairol Frizz Control serum in it, blow it dry, and then finish with Paul Mitchell Foaming Pomade Smoothing Polish to smooth away the last of the frizzies. On the days I don’t wash my hair (maybe once a week), I spray Aussie Hair Insurance Leave-In Conditioner on it, to kill any cooking smells that are clinging to my hair. 5. What’s your worst hair-related experience? When I was about 13, I wanted a body perm. A BODY PERM. What I ended up with was a fucking poodle perm. And yet I continued letting the same woman do my hair for years. What was I thinking? ]]>