Author: Robyn

Now I feel bad for saying I don’t care for the optometrist. He was perfectly friendly and charming. I must have gotten him on a bad day the last few times I went. That, or he was impressed with my lovely, blown-straight hair. Or maybe he was frightened by the zit on my cheek. One of those, I’m sure. Wouldn’t you think that past a certain age your eyes don’t get better, only worse? Especially when they’ve been pretty much the same for about three years? It appears that one of my eyes has gotten better, so now my eyes are both the same, uh, level of blindness. Which rocks, because now I can pop a contact in either eye, instead of worrying about which eye it belongs in. Dr. C was impressed to find that I don’t wear my contacts to sleep in, that I take them out every night. He said that most people with my level of vision (ie, “blind as a bat”) tend to sleep in them. Considering how awful I look in my glasses, I probably SHOULD sleep in my contacts, but I’m just not comfortable doing that. I used to as a youngun, but now that I’m older and wiser (ha!), the idea of a dry contact getting stuck to my eye freaks me out. Speaking of glasses, I’ve needed a new pair for years. In fact, the pair I currently have are the pair I bought the first Christmas after I moved down here. They make me look horrible (although I do that just fine even without the glasses), and they’re not strong enough. I spent at least half an hour looking at each and every pair of frames, and finally decided on a pair of the cheapest ones I could find. I figure, the only time I wear them is at night for about ten minutes before the lights go out, so why spend a lot of money on them? Naturally they were out of stock on the pair I wanted, so it’ll be 3 – 5 days before I get my new glasses. While I was there, I stocked up on my contacts. How fucking cool is it that 12 pair of contacts (I toss out the old ones once a month) is $60? I honestly remember when contacts were that much PER CONTACT. Damn I’m old. After leaving there, I went to the pet store, where I checked the kitties (they were all sleeping) and bought some bird seed, then ran to Target. I swear to god, I could wander around Target and it’s lovely, clean, WIDE aisles for six hours. Such a difference from Wal-Mart, with it’s crappy, crowded aisles. At Target I bought a new iron (the old one is probably ten years old, if not older) and a few things to organize the spud’s closet. There’s currently a huge plastic storage box in there, and she apparently feels that anything she doesn’t want to put away where it BELONGS should go in the box with her stuffed animals and toys: I found two spoons at the bottom of the box. SPOONS. I know I did the same lazy-ass, stupid-ass shit when I was a kid, and in retrospect my mother didn’t beat me nearly enough. I honestly don’t know why I’m bothering to buy anything to organize her closet, because within ten seconds of arriving back home in August, the child will half of everything she owns shoved under the bed, and the other half scattered across the floor of her room. Last summer her father bought her a pair of cowboy boots. Want to take a wild guess how many times she’s worn them? She has at least ten gimme caps, and I’m 99% sure I’ve never actually seen her in any of them. There are clothes hanging in her closet with tags still on them, and I would venture a guess that she will come home with a whole new slew of clothes that she won’t wear. Because when you say to her “Would you wear this?”, she immediately says “Yes!”, which is just a lie. And also which is why I never take her shopping unless we’re looking for something specific. Okay, it’s getting late. Let’s call this an entry, shall we?

If you look very closely, you will see dried catnip around Spanky’s lower lip. “DAMN woman, can’t I do anything without you flashing that thing at me? Meh! MEH, I say!”]]>

Johnny Poopoopants. Oh shit. Now they’re taking turns…

I call him Rainman. Not because he resembles Dustin Hoffman – he does not – but because he likes his life to go according to certain schedules, and the thought that they might not makes him jittery. “Coffee gets made at 8. Definitely at 8. And then I drink a cup every half hour. One every half hour. Out of my Harry Potter mug. Not a little mug. The big one.” I can practically see him rocking back and forth. It’s not that he’s wedded to his schedule, really. Sometimes he’ll get a hankering to get out of the house into the bright and sunny day, and he’ll jump up and proclaim that he must get out, and suggest that we go somewhere we’ve never been before. One night we discussed his preference to have things done a certain way at a certain time. We laughed about it before he kissed me seven times (slight exaggeration) and then toddled off to his room at exactly 9:41 (another slight exaggeration), where he snuggled under his sheets with his pillows arranged just so. Before he left, he pointed out again that it wasn’t that he HAD to have things done according to schedule, but rather that he simply liked it that way. “It’s not like I have OCD!” he pointed out before walking out the door. He walked back and turned the light on and off 25 times, and then left for real. (I’m kidding. He didn’t do that with the light.) The next morning I was working out, and he came to kiss me before he left. I looked down at his feet. “Oh,” I said with surprise. “You wear sneakers to work? I didn’t realize that.” “Only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” he said. “Definitely Friday.” “Why only those days?” “Because it would be slobby to wear them every day, and I don’t want our customers to think I always wear them.” The next day – Thursday – he waited for me to join him in the garage. We were going to feed the cats at the pet store. “You’re wearing sneakers,” I said. “But it’s Thursday!” “It’s okay for me to wear sneakers on cat day.” Clearly he carries around in his brain an intricate set of rules only he can truly keep up with. I tease him about his Rainman ways, and the other night when I asked him a question and he responded with “Definitely the cats”, I almost swallowed my gum, I was laughing so hard. But secretly – don’t tell him – I like his Rainman ways. It’s weirdly comforting to wake up on a Saturday morning, smell coffee brewing, and know that it must be after 8. Sometimes, I think he has Tourette’s. One day last year, after he’d had his surgery, he felt the need to get out of the house and go for a drive. We were driving down the road, he in the passenger’s seat, when he yawned. As he yawned, he made a very loud yawny-type noise, of such a pitch and magnitude that my right eardrum shattered and ear-goo dripped onto my shoulder. “GodDAMN!” I said. “Do you MIND?” “Oh!” he said, realizing what he’d done. He giggled a little and apologized. Not a month later, we were in the car again going out to dinner, the spud sitting in the back seat. He listens to the Oldies station, and a song he particularly liked came on. He turned up the volume and sang along. At some point, overcome by his love for the song, he lifted up his hands and clapped them together, making a loud, sharp sound that pierced my eardrum. “GodDAMN!” I said, holding my hand over my ear. “Do you MIND?” Once again he giggled and apologized. Since then, he has become a master fidgeter. Every evening after dinner we sit at our respective computers until 7. He tends to be the white noise in the background, and almost every night he does something to pierce that white noise shroud, and I will realize that he’s been sitting there tapping or pounding on his desk just as hard as he can, and I turn around to stare at him. “GodDAMN!” I always say. “Do you MIND?” The scary thing is that it’s never deliberate – he doesn’t intend to burst my eardrums or get on my nerves, he just has to fidget. The loss of 175 pounds from his body has apparently made him a more active guy; I didn’t know he was going to turn into Matthew Lesko. When we’re laying in bed at night, in the pauses between one conversation and another, when there’s nothing to occupy his mind, he will begin tapping a tune on the headboard. And it gets louder and louder and louder until the entire bed is shaking and practically boogeying across the floor. I think you know what I say at that point. Along with the annoying fidgets there’s something I refer to as a verbal fidget. When singing along to a song, he will insert a certain phrase at a point in the song where there’s a bit of a pause. For instance, he likes the song Sweet Pea, sung by Tommy Roe. One line of the chorus goes “Oh Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me”. Fred will sing along with it, and in the brief pause between “Pea” and “come”, he inserts the words “motherfucker say”. I have no idea what it comes from, but it never fails to crack me up. ]]>

Big Spring Park. Once there, we parked and headed for the pond, where we walked slowly around, tossing oyster crackers to the carp, some of which were – I shit you not – three feet long or longer. It was so cool to see them swim to the surface with their big mouths open and suck down an oyster cracker. There were also ducks and pigeons, which weren’t all that interested in what we had to offer, because there were tons and tons of other people there also feeding them. There was either a church function going on, or a nearby church had let out, and people were wandering around in their finery. After we’d been there for half an hour or so, we both desperately had to pee, and were also both pretty thirsty. Also, there were just too damn many people around, so we left to find a bathroom and something cold to drink. Once we’d peed and bought some sodas, we headed for Brahan Spring Park, nearby. The ducks and geese at Brahan Spring were more than happy to see us coming, and we fed them until we were out of crackers and bread. By the time we left there, it was pretty close to lunch time, and so we swung by Subway to buy lunch, and then went to the lake by UAH. We ate lunch, and then began walking around the lake, feeding more geese and fish (Fred bought two boxes of saltines after we stopped by Subway). There were Canadian geese, some ducks, and these really odd-looking geese that reminded me, in the face, of turkeys. Their bodies weren’t shaped like turkeys, though, so I have no clue what they really were. There was also one white goose who followed us around and when we weren’t quick enough with handing over the crackers, he’d hiss at us. I’d put up pictures of all this cool stuff, but I didn’t bring the camera with me, unfortunately, or you’d be looking at ten thousand pictures of baby geese. And DAMN are baby geese mighty cute. I have a bit of a sunburn, since that was the first time this year I’ve spent much time in direct sunlight.

I’m so pissed at WZYP, the radio station I usually listen to. In fact, I’m going to stop listening to it. When I first moved to Alabama, their morning show was the Ace & TJ Show, and Ace and TJ never failed to crack me up at least once every morning. A few months went by, and suddenly Ace & TJ were replaced by some crappy morning show. A few years went by, and the crappy morning show was replaced by another morning team, and then another. Then one magical morning, I turned on the radio to hear Ace & TJ, back on the radio! They’d moved from Huntsville to Birmingham, and then to North Carolina, where they decided to put out a syndicated radio show, and WZYP was one of the first stations to pick them up. Every morning, to make riding the stationary bike or lifting weights less painful, I’d listen to Ace & TJ, who always made me laugh and made the time go by faster. Then, yesterday morning, they weren’t there. I emailed them to find out what was going on, and got a diplomatic “WZYP decided to go in another direction.” Well, if yesterday morning and this morning is anything to go by, they decided to go in the “suck” direction. Fuckers. I MISS MY ACE AND TJ! Yesterday’s pet store kitties pictures are up here. I was surprised to receive Pamie‘s book in the mail yesterday, because I was under the impression it wasn’t coming out until July 1st. I pre-ordered it from Amazon months ago, when it was first available for pre-ordering, and it seemed like July 1st was forever away. I had to clear the deck – I was in the middle of reading a book, and had the latest issue of US to read – and so I stayed up late last night to do so. The deck is now cleared, and I’m ready to start reading Pamie, full steam ahead. Yay! Gardening pictures: Blooming glads (only two are blooming so far – the others have a few weeks yet) Very, very happy Million Bells. I guess they like either the heat or the humidity. I’d show you pictures of the tomato plants, which have gone hog wild (in a few weeks, we’ll be drowning in tomatoes), and the cantaloupe plants, which are really enjoying the heat and sunshine, but last time I went outside I got a Japanese beetle stuck in my HAIR (my HAIR! It was in my FUCKING HAIR! ::shudder::), and I did a shrieky little dance that probably caught the attention of half the neighborhood, so I’m going to just stay in for now. I know you understand.]]>

6:45: Be awakened by Fred. Talk for about 5 minutes how Miz Poo is a feisty little bitch. Hear about how she smacked Tubby around this morning when he got too close to her, and then smacked him again when he got between her and the food bowl. Kiss Fred goodbye (picture blurry because that’s what he looks like before I’ve put my contacts in). * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 6:45 – 7:45: Snooze. Finally roll out of bed and put contacts in, take Synthroid (for thyroid) and put on workout clothes. Traipse downstairs to face the morning. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 7:45 – 8:10: Read email, surf aimlessly, and tell myself I need to get up off my ass to go work out. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 8:12 – 9:03: Lift weights: Quads:

Deadlifts And step-ups Hamstrings: Lying leg curls (above) and hip raises (the picture didn’t come out). Calves: Single-leg calf raises and calf raises on the Smith machine (you can’t see it, but I have 110 pounds resting on my shoulders). Abs: The Firm 5-Day Abs, day 5 In the 1 minute wait between sets, if I’m not setting up weights for the next set, I quietly stand around and sweat like hell. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 9:03 – 9:38 Fill my cup with water (I drank an entire 32-oz cup of water while lifting weights) Rest, read email, guzzle water, surf. This rest time is very important – I could finish lifting weights and immediately jump on the stationary bike, but the times I’ve gone from one to the other without any rest, it’s been extremely difficult to finish those 30 minutes. Update exercise chart. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 9:40 – 10:10: Ride stationary bike… read Zany Chick book while riding to make the time go faster… ..listen to the local radio station on my Walkman (which is placed in a plastic baggie and then stuffed down my cleavage. I don’t know where I’d put it if I had a small chest.) “The Stand” is playing on the TV, in case I’m bored with the book. I can’t hear it, but I’ve seen the movie several times, so I know what’s going on anytime I glance over (mmmm, Gary Sinise…). * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 10:10 – 11:00: Drive to McDonald’s, and then home again. Eat breakfast (an Egg McMuffin and super-size Diet Coke)(Please note that Friday is my “eat what I want” Free Day, and thus I need no comments about how I shouldn’t be eating this, that or th’other. Thankssomuch.) Read Nance‘s entry, Sundry‘s entry, Chickie‘s entry, and catch up on the blogs I check out every day. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 11 – 12:10: Fold laundry, Snuggle with Miz Poo, take shower, blow-dry hair, and get dressed. After some deliberation, I put on a light yellow shirt and the cool earrings I bought from Kathy‘s eBay store. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 12:10 – 1:50: Drive to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to look at comforters. There’s not one comforter in the entire store that interests me enough for a second glance, so I buy a new pillow and some glasses marked down to 22 cents that I plan to use as candle holders. I consider going to Linens & Things, but it’s getting late and I’m getting hungry for lunch. I still have to go to the post office, so I take the back way… ..through Research Park, which has miles and miles of sidewalks and green, green grass. I never know quite where I’m going when I drive through Research Park, but I always end up at the right place. Must be my innate sense of direction. Get to the post office and find some cool mail… An Intel man for the top of my computer from cool reader Cheryle, and smiley-face stickers from cool reader Martha. (The Intel man is at the moment sitting atop my monitor. I give it 12 hours before Miz Poo “discovers” him and claims him for herself) After leaving the post office, I check my money situation and discover I don’t have enough for lunch. I decide to swing by the hated Wal-Mart, where I will hit the ATM and then pee (that super-size Diet Coke kicked in). I circle the Wal-Mart parking lot, hoping for a parking space within 1/2 a mile of the store, but am thwarted. I curse vociferously, taking the lord’s name in vain so many times and in so many ways that a nun in Yemen bursts into tears and drops to her knees to pray for the salvation of my eternal soul. I finally say “FUCK THE FUCK OUT OF THIS!”, and decide to drive to the other end of Hughes Road, where I will go to the ATM, get money, get lunch, and go home, hopefully before my bladder bursts. I make it the 4 miles to the other end of Hughes Road, and hit the ATM. Then drive to Wendy’s, where I place my order. I’m thankful that the drive-up team is fast, as usual, and head for home. When I get home, I dance the “gotta pee!” dance past the butterfly bush, and reflect on how very fucking much I loathe Japanese beetles, which are all over my damn butterfly bush. Fuckers. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1:50 – 4:00: Once inside, I pee (sighing loudly with relief), talk to Miz Poo, who is chirping curiously at me from the bathroom doorway, and then eat lunch – a Spring Mix salad, grilled chicken sandwich, and biggie Diet Coke. Once lunch is eaten, I chat on IRC (the ultra-geeky Delphi channel on Efnet), work on a journal entry, read Jane, surf aimlessly, check my stats, check my usual list of blogs, then finish and post my entry. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 4:00 – 5:20: Fred arrives home, and we leave to go out for dinner (we like to eat early and beat the crowd). I am careful to put new batteries in my camera, but when we’re halfway to our destination, I get the camera out of my purse to take a picture, and realize I’ve left the friggin’ memory stick in the memory stick reader at home. I curse myself. We eat at the Green Hills Grille. I have a couple of yummy rolls, a side salad (DAMN fine salad – I always appreciate a really good side salad), a Huntsville’s Best Burger topped with cheddar, and a side of fries. I end up taking the burger apart, because it’s so big that it’s easier to eat that way. I only eat a few fries before I decide I’m stuffed. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 5:20 – 7:00: Sit in front of the computer, getting pictures set up for this entry. Discuss the Discovery Health show “I Lost It!” with Fred, guzzle water, and surf the web. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 7:00 – 9:30: Watch America’s Funniest Home Videos while eating half a pint of Purity Vanilla ice cream, a couple of handfuls of Kit Kat bites, a few M&Ms, and drinking water. Oddly, though I haven’t been particularly thirsty all day, once I eat the sweet stuff, I’m dying of thirst. We’ve already seen this episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, so Fred gets out the Terminator 2 dvd, and watches that while I read magazines. Miz Poo comes looking for love, so I put a pillow on my lap, and she settles in for the duration of the evening. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 9:30 – 10:15: Go upstairs, get ready for bed, lay in bed and talk. Finally, Fred toddles off to bed, and I turn over and fall asleep fairly quickly, with Miz Poo snuggled up beside me.]]>

The other day, as we were laying in bed talking, Fred turned to me with a smile. “What?” I said. “Bessie,” he said. “I think it’s time to switch beds.” Because he’d said that before and changed his mind, I didn’t believe him. I just smiled and nodded and changed the subject. But last night, after we watched The Amazing Race, he said “Why don’t we go upstairs and switch the beds around now?” I’ve been coveting Fred’s bed pretty much since he bought it. It’s a queen and smaller than the king-size bed I’d been sleeping in, but it’s a much nicer bed with a firmer mattress, and I thought it would look better in the master bedroom with all the dark furniture than the king-size bed did. In about half an hour, we had the beds switched around, and I was right. The queen-size bed looks better in the master bedroom than the king-size did. I need to buy a new comforter for the bed, though, because the red, green, and gold doesn’t really go with the blue chair in the corner of the room. I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to look for a new comforter today, and didn’t see a single thing that I wanted. I think I’m going to order this one. And this is what Fred’s room looks like now (he didn’t want the headboard, so it’s basically a frame with a boxspring and mattress): Oddly, though the bed is bigger, his room looks bigger than it did with the big, dark bed in it. And the master bedroom looks bigger with the smaller bed in it. I didn’t sleep terribly well last night (Miz Poo was freaked out, and insisted on sitting next to me and digging at the sheets half the night), but I think that when I get used to the new bed, I’ll sleep like a baby. At least, I damn well HOPE I do, because I don’t want to have to switch the beds around again.

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short? Naturally wavy, I guess you’d call it. It can get curly in the back sometimes when it’s layered, but for the most part I’d call it wavy. 2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime? When I was a kid, my mother kept my hair fairly short. When I got in high school, I went between very short and just past shoulder length. I haven’t had it really short in about 10 years, but I have been going back and forth between long and chin-length. 3. How do you normally wear your hair? Normally I wash it and let it air-dry, pulled messily back in a clip. Once or twice a month I’ll blow it out straight, although it doesn’t really stay straight. I blew it out this morning so I’d look decent tonight (we’re going out to eat), and it was pretty straight this morning, but now this is what it looks like: I kinda like it, though. 4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like? All one color, for one thing, because my ends tend to lighten a lot between colorings. I’d like to have stick-straight hair that dries completely straight with no fuss. 5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened? My first perm was a total disaster. I wanted a body wave, and I ended up with a poodle perm. GodDAMN did it suck and look horrible. I can’t believe I ever got another perm in my life, but until my early 20s I regularly got a perm. Momma loves The Poo.]]>

(That’s a yawn, not a bitch)

One day last week I stood in my closet looking for a shirt to wear, and I said to myself “Self, you sure do have an awful damn lot of light gray t-shirts. What’s up with that?” And then I answered myself with “Bite me. I can’t help it if Cafe Press doesn’t offer t-shirts in various colors! White or gray, that’s it! (Except of course for the baseball t-shirts, which are white with a choice of red arms or blue). Don’t bitch at me, bitch at Cafe Press!” Then, I stopped and thought about it, which hurt a little. I came up with a possible solution, and the next day I stopped at the drugstore and bought two small packages. The packages then sat on the desk by the door because I am nothing if not a procrastinator. Yesterday, I got a bug up my butt (figuratively speaking), and I did what I’d planned to do, and it was good. That’s right, I dyed the motherfuckers. I think they came out pretty well, too, although I think I would have preferred the blue one to be a bit lighter, and the yellow one to be less gold. But they’re not light gray – which is SO not my color – and thus I’m going to declare the experiment a success. Apparently my love for the music of Lisa Marie Presley is limited to two songs: “Lights Out” (because really, how can you not laugh a little bit at the line “In the damn back lawn”?, and also, it’s got a good beat, and I can dance to it. If I could dance, that is. Does anyone get that “It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it” line, or are you all too young? And further, if you go to this page, you can listen to the song in Windows Media, and you won’t have to go do that illegal download thing that will blow up your computer, just because I like the song) and “Nobody Noticed It” (which I LOVE, because I love the sad songs. You can also listen to that one on the page linked above). The rest of her songs, however, kind of sound alike to me. I guess 2 out of 12 ain’t bad. Speaking of sad songs, have I mentioned that I love the sad songs? If I put together a compilation cd of my favorite songs, they’d probably make y’all want to kill yourselves. (And now someone will email me to tell me that suicide is no joking matter) I talked to the spud this morning. She didn’t go to the zoo the other day because it rained all day, so they went shopping instead. Lisa, the ex’s fiancee, had the spud professionally measured , and then bought the her a bunch of new bras at Victoria’s Secret. I am oddly amused by that. Reminds me of the (Jeff Foxworthy?) story about how he came home and his wife was folding laundry. He picked up a skimpy pair of underwear, leered, and said “Hooo, when are you going to model these for me?” His wife smiled and said “Probably never, since they’re YOUR DAUGHTER’S UNDERWEAR!”, at which point he screamed and threw the underwear across the room. This is Spanky. He is the cat who, on every trip through the bathroom to the bowl of food, stops and says “HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” when he sees the bath mat sitting in front of the shower. In front of the shower, where it always sits. And then he spends half an hour poking at the rug with his paw, backing up, and then walking forward to poke-poke-poke again. If you make a loud noise, he will jump three feet in the air and haul ass for a safe place. Uh, I mean, I think he’ll do that. I don’t know for sure, because I would never deliberately scare him. Nope, not me.]]>

Jenniffer sent me the link to this at the beginning of the month, and it absolutely cracks me up. Check it out. And also, thanks to reader Tammy, who sent me this link. I’ve seen it before, but it had been a while, so I enjoyed reading it again. I’m thinking that’s something that would happen to us. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.

In the most recent copy of People, there’s an article about Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, talking about how they’re so in loooove. So all I can wonder is whether Melissa Mathison (Harrison’s ex-wife, or soon-to-be) sees the cover of him talking about how in love he is, and thinks “Motherfucker. He never told People how he was soooooo in love with me when WE were together!” Harrison Ford, it seems, is into long-term monogamy. He was married to his first wife for 20 years, and his second wife for about the same. I guess in 2023, we’ll be hearing about the Ford/ Flockhart breakup, and how he’s dating Carys Zeta Douglas (that would be the 2 month-old daughter of Catherine Z-J and Michael Douglas, for the uninformed out there. And it scares me that I knew not only the child’s name, but approximately how old she is.) I’m going to stop mentioning The Fancy One all the time. Assume that he’s still gone if I haven’t said he’s back – though if he shows up, you know the second thing (after calling Fred) I’ll do is post to let y’all know. Thanks for all your suggestions, but I really do think we’ve done everything we can do to let everyone in the neighborhood know to keep an eye out for him, and there’s no inch in the house that has gone unchecked in our search. I really do suspect that he’s honoring another family with his Fancy ways, and when he gets bored with that, he’ll mosey on home. We decided last night that I’ll definitely be flying to Maine in July, rather than driving. Originally, I was going to drive to Maine to bring the spud’s old computer with me, to give to my nephew Brian. Then I discovered that the spud’s old computer is a piece of shit, and won’t even play The Sims (which Brian loves to play) and that the computer Brian has now is actually a better computer than the spud has. Then, after looking at ticket prices, we thought I should drive to save money (it really pisses me off that a one-way ticket from Portland to Huntsville costs as much as a round-trip. That’s bullshit, it really is). But after checking out the price of renting a car (we no longer trust our Jeeps to get me to Maine and back) and then renting a room one night on the way there and one night on the way back, it’s not really that much more expensive to fly. And it takes up a lot less time, which is always a good thing. So flying it is. We had yet another visit from the squirrel who comes by to partake of the bird seed we provide. (“Partake” always makes me think of Billy Crystal saying “But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.” in When Harry Met Sally.) We recently bought some cheap tinfoil sheets to put on the ground under the bird feeders, to catch all the bird seed the bastardly Blue Jay likes to toss on the ground. The ground feeders seem to like it, because they can feed from the ground, and it keeps the seed from piling up and attracting flies and all sorts of bugs. We put a neoprene weight on each sheet to keep it anchored. The squirrel was rather pleased, it seemed, that he wouldn’t be required to climb up to the bird feeders this time around. “Mmm… so nice of those And3rsons to put out seed for me…” “Did I just hear the whining sound of a small animal – a portly cat perhaps?” “Where on earth is that sound coming from?” “Oh, heavens! A kitty coming after me!” Somehow, despite the fact that Miz Poo sat under the tree for at least an hour, watching for that damn squirrel to come down, I failed to get a picture of her.]]>

know. I’ve never been the patient sort.

The spud is now in Rhode Island. She flew from Orange County, California to Rhode Island on Sunday, and according to her itinerary was to land in Rhode Island at 7:30 Eastern time. I waited and waited and waited for her to call, and when it had been 2 hours since her flight landed she still hadn’t called, I sucked it up and called her father’s apartment. They’d decided to go out to eat on the way home, and had just walked through the door when I called. All was fine, nothing went wrong, and now she’s spending a week with her father and his fiancee before going up to Maine. I can officially stop worrying about the spud having to fly on her own, since she won’t again, at least this summer. She called this morning to talk to me. She’s getting a little better about talking on the phone, but there are still too many long, long silences. I got an earful about her father and his fiancee, how they’re looking for a new apartment, but can’t seem to find one they like, how they only have marshmallows in the house (mmm.. marshmallows), because instead of keeping a store of food they go out each night and buy whatever they need to to make dinner, how Lisa (the fiancee) was at work, and was going to call in sick tomorrow so they could go to the zoo. You know – more than I ever really wanted to know about the ex and his fiancee, really. At least the spud is good at forthcoming with the details. If she knows the answer, she’ll tell me, which is a good thing, considering my nosiness. In my comments yesterday, reader Elana pointed out that Tubby looks an awful lot like Cartman, from South Park. I definitely see the resemblance. A definite good mail day today. I checked the PO box to find a t-shirt from the wonderful Rachael. Is that perfect for me, or what? In fact, as I told Rachael when I emailed to thank her, I think that my new journal tagline should be Bitchypoo – just one big fuckin’ ray of sunshine. After some coaxing… Miz Poo… …shows that damn Hand O’ Evil just exactly who’s the boss ’round these parts. ]]>

Can you see Spot reaching out, hoping to be Fancified? Fancypants was not trapped in the house of the people who moved – they’re actually still living there, it appears, or at least getting the house ready to be sold. He also was not trapped in the moving truck, but thanks for the suggestions, y’all. Fred said last night, “I keep thinking that Fancypants is trapped in the house somewhere.” Every time the washer or dryer is running, Fred thinks he hears a cat meowing, and ends up going to investigate. There’s no way he could be in the house, though – we’ve searched every corner, every cabinet, every closet, every inch of every room.

So, if you’re a pain in the ass, and you get into your big, expensive pain in the ass vehicle, and you drive your yuppie self to the nearest McDonald’s, and you plan on placing a great big special-item order (“A cheeseburger with no onions. Another cheeseburger, this one with no ketchup. A third cheeseburger, with no pickles. A large fry with no salt. A large fry with extra salt. A Diet Coke. A regular Coke. An iced tea, with only lemon. An iced tea, with no lemon and no sugar. Oh, and could you write on the wrapper to all of those cheeseburgers exactly what each is, so I won’t have to unwrap it with my lily-white fingers and figure out which cheeseburger goes to which kid?”), would you kindly get your big bitchy ass out of your big gas-guzzling SUV (yeah, I know, potkettleblack) and haul your ass INTO the store so that you can oversee the creation of your order? Because if someone in line behind you (hi!) at the drive-up is intent on only ordering a salad and a (super-size!) Diet Coke, and you spend ten minutes screaming your huge fucking order into the drive-up speaker, and then remark loudly to your travelling companion how stupid those idiots at McDonald’s are, and then you spend another 5 minutes screaming at the drive-up lady who takes your money, and THEN you sit at the second drive-up window for yet another 5 minutes, going painstakingly THROUGH your order, unwrapping each sandwich to double-check, tasting fries to be sure they’re done correctly, shaking your BIG FUCKING BITCH HEAD the entire time, what will that accomplish? I’ll tell you what that will accomplish. That will cause the salad-and-Diet-Coke lady behind you (hi!) to, after paying for her order at window #1, and after watching you SHAKE YOUR BIG FUCKING BITCH HEAD for 10 minutes as you smugly tell your travelling companion that McDonald’s isn’t as good as Burger King, to put her vehicle in park – while still in line – lock her doors, walk past your STUPID YUPPIE BITCH SELF, walk into the McDonald’s, lean into the drive-up booth and say brightly, with a smile, “Hi! I see that you have a real pain in the ass in the drive-up. I’m behind her in line. Could I have my order? A salad and Diet Coke? I think that’s it, right there.” And not only will the drive-up folks be THRILLED to hand her order to her, but they will ALSO ask her if she’d kindly take the order to the people in line behind her, and she will be just as thrilled to comply. And yet, after all your pain in the ass-ness, when she walks by your big fucking SUV and mutters “GoddamnmotherfuckingpaininthefuckingassBITCH”, you will be somehow be surprised. And you will be further surprised and appalled when the TWO vehicles behind you pull out, having received their orders, despite all you’ve done to prevent that. Pet store kitties are here. So, we went to see The Matrix Reloaded on Saturday. I made Fred buy me a Diet Coke, because the movie time was messing with my usual lunch time, and there was no way I was going to sit through a 2+ hour movie without something to drink. (If I’d been thinking before we left the house, I would have stuck a can of Diet Coke in my purse and thus saved us $145. But I wasn’t thinking, which is all too common in my life these days, and thus we had to spend $8 for 2 large Diet Cokes. Damn.) We were walking away from the snack bar, when Fred gestured at the far wall, where posters for future movies were hanging. “There’s a movie about…” he squinted and then blushed. “Oh, never mind.” After much persuasion, he confessed that he’d seen the movie ratings poster on the wall and thought there was going to be a movie about the ratings system. We decided that would be a pretty boring movie, indeed. Hee! I just finished reading How to Be Invisible, by JJ Luna, and found it pretty interesting, although I did have a dream that I was being stalked, and had to put the principles of the book in motion. It was a good book although there were parts that made it clear it was originally published in 2000, specifically the parts dealing with flying without using your name. Post-9/11, I don’t see that happening. JJ Luna thinks like I do, at least in part. At one point in the book he says “If you don’t know the person ringing your doorbell, why bother to answer the door?” Amen to that! “Meh. MEH. Meh!”]]>

The Matrix Reloaded this afternoon. Not a bad movie. Any movie where you can catch the occasional glimpse of Keanu Reeve’s ass is pretty good in my book. We stopped on the way home at the Farmer’s Market for peaches and cantaloupes, grapes and jam. I love summer. Now if Fancypants would just get his ass home.]]>