Category: Life

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Since I never did get a TV blog up and running again, and it’s all just too much of a pain in the ass for me right now, I decided to co-opt Fred’s forum, and post there about Survivor: Palau. In fact, I think I’ll do all my TV yammering over there from here on out.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Petstore kitty pics from Monday are here. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So, I bought the spud Season 2 of Xena Warrior Princess (on DVD) for Christmas. She started watching it a few weeks ago, and then realized that in the set were two disc 4s and no disc 5s. Of course, this wouldn’t do, so I told her to leave it on the counter and I’d figure out what to do with it. Time went by, a thick layer of dust grew on the DVD set, and finally I got tired of seeing the set sit on the counter. I sent an email to Amazon telling them what the problem was, and asked what I should do. I got back an email from an Amazon customer service rep who told me that because it was more than 30 days since I’d ordered the Xena DVDs, they’d never send out a replacement, but this one time they’d make an exception and were going to send me Xena – Series Finale and I needed to send them back the Xena set within 30 days or they’d charge me for the DVD they’d sent. So, to recap: I am missing Disc #5 from the SECOND SEASON of Xena. The brainiac in customer service thinks that sending me the Xena SERIES FINALE is a good response. The more I deal with Amazon, the more they piss me off. I’m about to move my fucking wish list to Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks or what-the-fuck-ever, because every fucking time I have to deal with Amazon, I end up wanting to tear my hair straight out of my friggin’ head. Amazon is like a boyfriend who can’t be bothered to call when he says he will, who paws other women right in front of me, who makes snide comments about my ass AND YET I KEEP ON GOING BACK FOR MORE. Amazon is the Jonathan Baker of boyfriends. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ And before you suggest it, I’ve already emailed Anchor Bay Entertainment – who put out the DVDs – to ask what I should do. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Not only do I have daffodils blooming in the back yard, but I also got a BOX of daffodils via Fedex yesterday. They came from 2G Roses, sent by someone who clearly lurrrrrrrrves me. I love daffodils, have I mentioned? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “If I go outside, will I get zapped?” ]]>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I read Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot the night before last. It’s such a small book that it took me about an hour – if that – to read. I always forget how much I like her writing, even though she kind of weirds me out a little at the same time. I’ll always think of her as the woman who had an affair with her father – and then wrote a book about it – and if that doesn’t give you the willies, I don’t know what will. This is a woman with Issues, I guess you could say. But an amazing writer. I recommend The Mother Knot.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ In the back yard, my daffodils are beginning to bloom, and the temperature is somewhere in the 40s. It hit 70 degrees on Tuesday, then we had some crappy weather yesterday – (in fact, when we were sitting in the lawyer’s office signing the refinancing papers yesterday, the tornado sirens went off, and Fred and the lawyer did a rousing rendition of “Them damn tornado sirens iz fer pussies and I ain’t takin’ no shelter and it used to be that the sirens didn’t go off unless there wuz an actual tornado spotted, but now if the sky gets a little windy they set those damn sirens off without thinkin’ twice, uh-huh” replete with a little soft shoe and jazz hands.) – and the temperature dropped into the low 50s, and it seems to be getting colder and colder and JESUS CHRIST I MOVED TO THE SOUTH SO I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO BE COLD AGAIN. Why, god, why? I’m sitting here, my fingers are freezing, my toes are freezing (and the big-ass cup of Diet Coke with lots of ice I just finished drinking has NOTHING to do with that, I’m sure), I have two space heaters going (though a portly Poo is flopped down in front of one of them, stealing the heat so that it won’t get to me), and I am FREEZING. Clearly I need to move to South America. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I finally remembered to go to the frame shop where I’d dropped off the picture I cross-stitched for the spud. I dropped it off about a month and a half ago, and they called the week after to let me know it was done, but I kept forgetting to go pick it up until this morning. It looks good; I was a little worried whether the red mat would work, but I think it worked out just fine. However, does it look just a little bit off-center to you, or am I just seeing things? I look at it one time and it looks fine, and then I look at it again and it looks off-center. What do you think? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ::sniff::sniff::sniff::sniff::SNIFF::SNIFF::SNIFF:: Miz Poo does not appreciate being sniffed when she’s minding her own business hanging out on top of a box.]]>

This picture made me giggle (thanks to mah baybee for the link).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This is horrible to admit, but from April of last year to February of this year, I didn’t touch the company financial books (the company being the publishing company we formed to publish Fred’s book) aside from entering a few invoices. I didn’t enter the monthly bills into the books, I didn’t balance the checking account every month, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Don’t you wish I was responsible for your books? Since Fred needed to get our stuff to the accountant so that she can do our tax return this year, I finally sat my ass down almost a year’s worth of bank statements, a ton of printed-out Amazon orders I’d never entered, and I concentrated on getting the books in order. Know how long it took me? About an hour. After putting it off all month long because I didn’t want to deal with it, it ended up being almost painless – I started music playing, sat down with a big cup of ice-cold Diet Coke, and got it done. I plan to stay on top of things for the rest of the year. Har. The books are almost gone, which means that hopefully before the end of the year we can shut down the company and close the company checking account, and I won’t have to do it all again next February! I kind of made a resolution at the beginning of February to keep on top of our personal financial books, because I have a bad habit of letting a week or two go by without putting in the debit card purchases, and so far I’ve done a pretty good job of it. Does this mean I’m turning into a grown-up? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of turning into a grown-up, Fred and I had an appointment this morning with a lawyer. That’s right, a lawyer. Because we’re getting a divorce. HA! JUST KIDDING! Did I make your heart skip a little beat there for a second? No, we’re not getting a divorce – we were doing something that requires MUCH more paperwork than getting a divorce, and that is refinancing the freakin’ house. We signed and signed and signed and signed, and every time I had to sign “R0byn L. And3rson”, I clenched my teeth, because I’ve made it a point to always use “R0byn And3rson”, no middle initial for everything – checking account, credit cards, all that good stuff, specifically because I hate having to sign with that middle initial, and here I was having to sign that freakin’ middle initial 45,000 times. But it was actually fairly painless, and now our mortgage payment is reduced by (approximately) 21.428571 percent. AND we don’t have to make a mortgage payment for March! Par-tay! Also – and this makes me so happy I could just giggle – this means that Chase Manhatt@n is OUT of our lives. Buh-bye, Chase Manhatt@n, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out! Our new mortgage company is a small company in Ocala, Florida, and I think we all know what that means: our mortgage will probably be sold to Chase Manhatt@n in two seconds flat. Ugh. So now that the refinancing is done, we’re going to go shopping for a car for me, and just in the nick of time because I think the electrical system on the Jeep is going a wee bit haywire. Last night I drove to McDonald’s for an ice cream cone, only there were about fifteen people in line and I said “FUCK THIS”, and drove back home, and I was driving along minding my own business, and suddenly the lights started flashing on and off and on and off and I had no clue how to make it stop, and I worried that the person in front of me was going to wonder why I was flashing my fucking lights at her, but just as I was about to pull off the road and figure out how to deal with the flashing lights, they stopped. I fully expect that any time now, I’ll be driving down the road, and the Jeep will fall to pieces, and I’ll be sitting there holding the wheel, with my foot on the gas and a big cartoon question mark hanging over my head. I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll end up getting as a car, but y’all will just have to wait ’til I actually have it in my possession before I tell you, because if I tell you, someone will have something not-nice to say about it (not YOU, of course, but see that scowling chick over THERE? Yeah, she’s primed and ready to snipe, I can just tell), and Fred’s head will fall off and bounce across the room, and I kinda like his head where it is. But worry not – once the car is mine, there’ll be pictures galore, I promise! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Whatnot” would an excellent name for a blog. You could even make it a wedding blog and make a play on words with “What Knot?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So after the refinancing, I went to Sam’s since I was in the area anyway. I wandered around and got annoyed because Sam’s has stopped carrying the gum I love – Trident White Spearmint – and also they had no tea, no Crystal Light Pink Lemonade, AND no cherry Kool-Aid. I did get bottled water, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and a bottle of Flintstones vitamins, so the trip wasn’t a total waste. When I was standing in line at the checkout, I saw the 32-ounce cups they sell for 74 cents (which you take over to the soda fountain and fill up with the soda of your choice), and I decided that I should get a cup of Diet Coke at Sam’s instead of going through the drive-thru at McDonald’s – which I’d been planning to do – because the 32-ounce Diet Coke at McDonald’s is twice as much as the same size and same soda at Sam’s. I bought the cup, filled it up with Diet Coke, and when I sat down in the Jeep I took a big swig of the Diet Coke, and it sucked. I don’t know if it was flat, or the machine needed to be cleaned, or maybe just that McDonald’s puts crack in their Diet Coke, but my Sam’s Diet Coke was a great big letdown. Guess I’ll know better next time. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Fred found a pile of floppy disks in the dining room the other day and started using them to copy stuff for the thing he’s working on (she said obliquely), and I took one to make a copy of our books for the accountant. I checked first to see what was on it, and found a little treasure trove of Tubby pics from November 2003. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

Alicia I know nothing at all about Little Ponies, Mine or Otherwise. I only know from reading Katherine’s entry that they have a symbol on their butts that go with their names? Or something? Okay, so my My Little Pony name would be Badass and my butt symbol would be a sneering smiley face. Will that work, or are the Little Ponies supposed to have names that consist of more than one word? I’m so confused! 2. “What do you think of when you look up at a brilliant night sky?” – Athena Usually I wonder whether the stars whose light I’m seeing are still around, or whether they winked out of existence a billion years ago. Sometimes I wonder who else in the world is standing in place and staring up at the stars at the exact moment I am. And I always wish that I had a skylight over my bed, so that I could lay in bed and look up at the stars every night as I go to sleep. 3. “Have you ever felt prejudice towards anyone, or felt it aimed at you? Describe/explain.” – Becky Since I’ve been living in the South, I find that more and more I have a knee-jerk prejudice toward people who try to cram their religion down my throat. I used to be willing to listen to someone who’d knock on my door and try to tell me how it is, but now I have no patience at all. As soon as I hear anyone say anything at all about church, going to church, or anything church-related, I stop listening immediately. As far as feeling prejudice aimed toward me? Sure, I’m a fat woman who dares to go out into public. People take one look at me and are certain that I sit on my ass on the couch all day long cramming Twinkies into my mouth. Clearly I don’t exercise at all, and as far as eating healthy, balanced meals? Sh’yeah. 4. “You suddenly notice a doorway in your home that you’ve never noticed before. You open it and find your room! Describe it.” – Carrie It would be a small, cozy room; there would be large windows on two of the walls, and the third and fourth walls would be floor-to-ceiling bookcases stocked with books and magazines I hadn’t yet read. The walls would be painted a very light shade of yellow. In one corner would be a chaise longue with a couple of fluffy pillows and a warm quilt. There’d be a small refrigerator near the chaise longue stocked with bottles of water and cans of Diet Coke. In another corner of the room would be an overstuffed chair, and scattered on the floor in various spots would be cat beds, because you KNOW a room can’t belong to me without a sleeping cat or two nearby. 5. “Pick a song that can make you cry every time you hear it and explain the reason why it does.” – Cricket This would probably be a shorter list if you’d asked which songs DON’T make me cry! A song guaranteed to make me tear up every time would be Beloved Wife by Natalie Merchant, because of the lines A depth so deep/ Into my grief/ Without my beloved soul/ I renounce my life/ As my right/ Now alone without my beloved wife/ My beloved wife. Who doesn’t want to be loved like that? And no one else on earth could have done that song justice the way Natalie Merchant does. You were the love For certain of my life You were simply my beloved wife I don’t know for certain How I’ll live my life Now alone without my beloved wife My beloved wife I can’t believe I’ve lost the very best of me You were the love For certain of my life You were simply my beloved wife I don’t know for certain How I’ll live my life Now alone without my beloved wife My beloved wife I can’t believe I’ve lost the very best of me You were the love For certain of my life For 50 years simply my beloved wife With another love I’ll never lie again It’s you I can’t deny It’s you I can’t defy A depth so deep Into my grief Without my beloved soul I renounce my life As my right Now alone without my beloved wife My beloved wife My beloved wife My love is gone she suffered long In hours of pain My love is gone Now my suffering begins My love is gone Would it be wrong if I should Surrender all the joy in my life Go with her tonight? My love is gone she suffered long In hours of pain My love is gone Would it be wrong if I should Just turn my face away from the light Go with her tonight? 6. “If you could, in retrospect, change one thing about your childhood, what would it be?” – Danielle I’d have a mother who knew how to be consistent about anything at all. 7. “What was your first job?” – Debbie I was a carhop/ waitress at the Hi-Hat III drive-in restaurant in Lisbon, Maine for about a year, starting at the age of 15. Surprisingly, I found that I was pretty good at dealing with the public (and got even better after I quit that job and started working at McDonald’s). It was a pretty good job, although my boss was a bit of an ass. It’s because of that job that I’m an excellent tipper today – many times I busted my ass waiting on someone only to get no tip at all. Bastards. 8. “Explain the name of your journal. How’d you come up with it?” Fred came up with it, actually. We were sitting around trying to come up with the right name, and as soon as he said it, I knew it was perfect. 9. “Describe your bedroom when you were 17. And now?” – HMW I really don’t remember much about my bedroom when I was 17, except that it was in the basement of the house where my parents live today, and I couldn’t leave clothes on the floor because they’d start growing mold in less than a day. My bedroom now is about as perfect as it could be. I’ve got a queen-sized bed, the walls are a warm cream color, I’ve got a chair in the corner of the room where I sit and read every morning after I’m out of the shower (because you can’t go directly from showering to getting dressed; bras are impossible if you try to put them on when you’re still damp). There’s a bookcase full of books I haven’t read yet, and a TV with a VCR and DVD player across the room from the bed. Also, I’m slowly starting (after 3 1/2 years!) to hang things on the wall, which really makes the room a little more cozy. 10. “What does being a woman mean to you?” – Jenn Being able to create and sustain life. And never being able to walk down a street at night without fear. 11. “Name one thing you to did today that made you step outside your comfort zone.” – Jolene Not a damn thing – I live pretty much inside my comfort zone and don’t venture out of it too often. Isn’t that sad? 12. “If you could do anything, knowing that money, opportunity, talent, etc. weren’t considerations, what would you do for a living?” – Katherine I’d be a pop star! I can’t sing worth a shit, but I sure would love to be able to! 13. “When you’re feeling down, what can you always count on to cheer you up again (even if only temporarily)?” – Kathy 14. “When you’re having a bad day, what do you find most comforting?” – Lissa Having the spud fill me in on all the gossip from school, snuggling with Fred for a little while, or picking up and cuddling with Miz Poo or Mister Boogers are all guaranteed to make me happy. 15. “Have you ever had a friendship go sour? If so, describe what happened to tear you apart.” – Lynda The only friendship that comes to mind is my friendship with Denise. We were good friends when I was a senior in high school and for the few years after, but Denise is one of those holier-than-thou people who tends to look down on everyone, and I guess she decided I wasn’t good enough for her, because she just kind of cut off all communication at some point. Can’t say I much miss her. (Denise story: Liz and I were taking college classes on the Navy base in Brunswick, and Denise said “I told my mother you two were taking classes, and she got mad and said ‘You’re smarter than either of THOSE TWO, you should be taking classes, too!'”, and then gave us a look that made it clear that she agreed. Um, I think NOT. There’s a difference between being SMART and being A KNOW-IT-ALL. That’s okay, though – I got my revenge when Denise, Liz and I took a history class together. She got a D, and me? I got an A. HA!) 16. “Using MapBlast or MapQuest, find the distance between your current home and your hometown (or, if you moved a lot while growing up, your birthplace). How many miles or kilometers separate you from that place now?” – Melissa 1401.1 miles. Mapblast claims it would take me 20 hours to drive from here to there. I bet I could do it in 18! 17. “What would be your ideal job?” – Nance I think the job I’ve got now is pretty damn cushy. Aside from this job, though, any job that would let me traipse through someone else’s house and check out how they have it decorated would be the perfect job for me – realtor, cable installer, housecleaner, house appraiser. The list goes on! 18. “Do you Google people you know or come in contact with, and do you think Googling people is a good thing?” – Noreen I Google people all the time, both people I went to school with, and people I meet currently. I think Google is THE SHIT. 19. “If there was one thing you could change about yourself, personality-wise, what would it be and why?” – Reb I’d be less of a phone-phobic, and I’d be less worried about going into new situations. (Yeah, that’s two. So sue me!) 20. “How does your current life differ from what you thought it would be like when you were 10? How (if at all) is it the same?” – Me When I was 10, I thought I was going to be a veterinarian, and married to Donny Osmond. I had a very elaborate scheme wherein I would move to Utah, down the street from where Donny lived, and I would casually walk by his house, and he would be immediately struck by love, and he would run out of his house and sweep me in my arms and we’d run away and get married and live happily ever after and I would be the TOTAL envy of every woman in America. Suffice it to say that I’m not a vet and I’m not married to Donny Osmond. I think that Donny and I are probably both better off for it. I also didn’t think, when I was 10, that I would have any kids, despite the fact that Donny Osmond would probably have required me to have a thousand of them. 21. “If someone were to gossip about you, what do you think they would say?” – Say-Say “My god she’s a spaz. Boring, too!” 22. “If you could spend 24 hours living the life of one other person, just for fun and the sake of seeing how someone else lives and feels, who would it be?” – Sherry I think I’d like to be a guy for 24 hours. A good-looking guy who could get any woman he wants. Ooh! I’d like to be Brad Pitt, that’s who. Then I’d know exactly what was going on with Brad and Jen, and whether he really was fooling around with Angelina Jolie. Also, I’d be interested to see what it’d be like to be unable to go out to the store without being swarmed by the paparazzi. Also, I’d find out what it’s like to walk around with a penis. To quote Elaine from Seinfeld, “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.”

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Well said!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So, I went to the pet store this morning to do my regular Monday morning cleaning (pictures will be up later this week, I’m sure), and I spent a little more than an hour at the store, and by the time I left I was soaked in sweat and felt just as relaxed as I could possibly feel. I’ve never had a massage, but I suspect that it was the same kind of relaxed feeling. I always feel that way when I leave the pet store on Monday mornings – who needs to spend the money for a professional massage, when you can spend half an hour cleaning out cat cages, and another half an hour snuggling with kitties? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The spud was invited to a party at a boy’s house on Saturday night. I was under the impression that it was because he’d gotten his license, but apparently it was a birthday party. That’s what I get for not reading the invitation closely enough, huh? So we left the house a little before 6 – the party was supposed to start at 6 and end at 10 – and found the kid’s house pretty easily. The kid was standing out front leaning into a car talking to someone, and we pulled up behind the car. The spud got out, and Fred said to the spud “Don’t forget to call us when you’re ready for us to come pick you up!”, and the spud said she would (see how that cell phone comes in handy?) and then the birthday boy walked over to our car. “Say hi!” Fred said, and then waved at the birthday boy and said “hi!” I smiled, and then realized that the birthday boy was coming over to talk to us, and I fumbled around for a minute and then opened the window. “He had quite a few questions,” said the birthday boy, pointing to the car we’d pulled up behind, which was starting to pull away. “So I thought I’d come over and give you the skinny.” The skinny! Hee! I was so startled that I looked at Fred, a big smirk on my face, because who says “the skinny”? “First of all,” said birthday boy, “There are three adults in the house, my father, my step-mother, and my aunt.” “How are you going to have any fun?” Fred joked, which threw the birthday boy off his stride a little. He stood up and glanced toward the house and blinked a few times, and then leaned back down. “So, yeah, three adults. My father and I are Southern Baptists and my step-mother and aunt are Church of Christ -” I was struck with the very strong urge to scream “Spud, get back in the car!”, but resisted. ” – and the party should be over around 10. I can give you the land-line or my cell phone number,” he offered. Fred smiled. “Oh, she has her cell phone with her, and I think we have your phone number on the invitation.” “Right,” said birthday boy. And he stood up and we said goodbye, and then Fred drove off as I closed my window. “I wasn’t worried,” Fred said to me. “Because any party where the invitation suggests bringing Dance Dance Revolution pads is not one that’s going to get out of hand.” We giggled, and then went home to spend an exciting evening watching TV. The Happy Days reunion, to be exact. We are SUCH party animals. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

Napolean Dynamite. It’s weird, actually – I liked it okay when we were watching it, but as time goes by, I actually like it more and more. In fact, I think I’m going to netflix it and teach myself the dance sequence. What? Is that strange? GO FIND YOUR OWN TOTS. (“Go find your own tots” would an excellent title for a blog.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. The ones from last Monday are here. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We watched Wife Swap last night, and GOOD GOD was I pissed off by the end of the show. Fred started a thread about it over on his forum; go add your two cents. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So not only did I get the “Cat in the Garden” picture from Fred for my birthday, but I used some of the money I got from his parents for my birthday to buy another picture. This one, to be exact. Y’all know how I love the daffodils! I really like this picture, too, but I’m not sure where I’d hang it, so I might have to lust after it from afar. So that picture is going to be going up in my bedroom along with the other picture. We’ve lived in this house for 3 1/2 years and until now we’ve had nothing at all hanging on our bedrooms walls. In fact, we had nothing much hanging anywhere until about the last year, when I hung the picture over the mantel, some pictures in the hallway, a Tubby picture at the bottom of the stairs, and the cross-stitch “Mad Bluebird” picture my sister cross-stitched for me last year, which is now hanging in the living room. Why, it almost looks like people live in this house, now. I figure it’ll take another two years for me to get the walls of this house looking like I want them to. Just in time for us to put the house up for sale, in other words. Speaking of selling the house, Fred called me from work earlier this week. “I don’t want to refinance the house,” he said. “Oh, why? Is it not going to lower the payment as much as you thought?” I said. “No, that’s not it. It appraised for (large number that’s way more than we paid for this house 3 1/2 years ago and made me gasp). I want to sell it!” “We’re NOT selling the house,” I said. “Awww, come ON. We could get so much money for it, and buy a less expensive house and practically pay cash for it!” “We’re NOT selling the house yet,” I said. “I bet she wouldn’t mind switching high schools,” Fred said. “HA. We are NOT selling the house yet.” I think he got the idea. It was nice to see that the house has gone up in value so much in the past 3 1/2 years, anyway. Hopefully it’ll continue to go up over the next two years and when it’s time to sell we’ll make a tidy profit. Of course, the people who owned this house before us had it for sale for almost a year before we bought it. I’m hoping the same won’t be true for us, but god knows. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The kids who live on either side of us have no qualms at all about running through our front yard, up our driveway, through our front flower beds (are they called flower beds if there aren’t actually any flowers in them?). I don’t like it much when I’m sitting in the computer room – which looks onto our tiny front lawn – and a kid comes to rummage through the flower bed directly in front of the window to look for a ball that went astray, but I can live with it. I mean, I bitch about it to Fred, but it doesn’t piss me off so much that I’d go out there and say something to the kid or his parents. So the kid next door got a croquet set at some point in the last few weeks, and he and his friends have spent much time in the front yard play croquet. They left their croquet mallets on the front lawn for a few hours on Saturday, and Fred and I joked about going outside and walking up and down the property line and casting horrified looks at the mallet and then at the neighbor’s house. (Because the woman who lives in that house used to go outside and walk up and down the property line, stand at the street and stare up the property line, hold at-length conversations with her friends while standing in the street staring up the property line, and did this for the better part of a year before she came out while Fred was mowing one day, called him “Dude” and asked him not to mow over the property line because it looked funny and because ChemLawn wouldn’t spray that part of the yard because they assumed it was on our property. Why she felt the need to ostentatiously walk up and down the property line so many times instead of just coming over and talking to Fred, I have no idea. I guess she hoped we’d get the idea, but all she did is make me paranoid. “What the hell? Why is she doing that? What the fuck is her problem? Is our fence on their property? They SAID we could attach to their fence! WHAT IS SHE DOING? WHAT DOES SHE WANT???”) Anyway, by the time evening came the parents had made the kid move his croquet set into the garage, and then Monday morning when I was walking out to the mailbox I saw it, sitting there not three feet from our front door – a pretty blue croquet ball. I swerved out of my way a little and kicked the ball, then kicked it across the lawn and into the street. ‘Cause, you understand, it wasn’t MY ball and it didn’t belong in MY yard, and I am ten years old at heart, and very possessive of my tiny front yard. Once the ball hit the street it ceased to exist for me, and aside from hoping that it hadn’t gone down into the storm drains, I completely forgot about it. Until Tuesday morning when I was leaving to go somewhere, and I glanced out into the front yard as I backed out of the driveway, and saw it again. The same (I assume) blue ball, sitting in roughly the same part of the yard. Was this on purpose? I wondered. Had the neighbor seen me kick the ball into the street and was now taunting me by putting it back where it was? Or had the kid been out playing and knocked it into the yard again? Because I’m paranoid, I suspected the former, that the neighbor had waited until dark and crept into our front yard and placed the ball near the front door, snickering the entire time. When I got home again, I remembered that I needed to mail a movie back to Netflix, and so I got the movie and walked out the front door, skirted the ball, and walked to the mailbox. I put the movie in the mailbox, put up the flag, and glared at the blue ball. Should I pick it up and bring it inside, since it was on MY lawn? Should I kick it into the street again? What? I walked to the ball, picked it up, and threw it toward the street. It went a lot further up the street than I expected, almost two house up, before it came to a stop in the gutter. For the rest of the day, I went to the window several times to see if it was still there, and until about four o’clock it was. Then I got busy making dinner and all that, and the next time I looked out the window, it was gone. I expected to see it again on Wednesday, but it was nowhere to be seen. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Thanks, those of you who shared your flan recipes yesterday, but the spud had a recipe that her Spanish teacher gave her. She and Fred made the flan yesterday, and it looked pretty good – and the entire house smells like burnt sugar. Which is not an unpleasant smell at all. I looked at the flan after it had cooled for two hours and was dumped out of the pan and into the fire onto a plate. “It looks good,” I said. “It looks kind of spongey. I’ve never had flan.” “It’s the consistency of a custard,” Fred said. “I’ve… never had custard, so that doesn’t mean a lot to me.” “Oh. Well, it’s like the consistency of a container of ricotta,” he tried. “Umm… nope. I don’t know that I’ve ever had ricotta.” “You’ve had ricotta!” he said. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve always used cottage cheese in my lasagna.” “Oh. Well, it’s like…” he thought about it, then brightened. “Like a big block of brie.” “Uh, nope. Never had brie.” So then he gave up. Heh. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Look, look! Look what a very cool reader in Iceland cross-stitched for me, and made the front of a holiday card for me! It’s a robin! Isn’t it adorable? I think I’m going to take the cross-stitch part out of the card and make it into an ornament to hang on my tree for next year. It’s so cute, I love it! (Thanks Johanna!) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Nyah!” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So I grabbed the next book off the top shelf of my bookcase, looked at it, and groaned. “What?” Fred said. “LOOK at this book!” I said, and held it up. “It’s chick lit – Red Dress Ink – but it’s four hundred and fifty pages long!” “Damn.” “Chick lit should NOT be that freakin’ long. It shouldn’t be any longer than… like… three hundred and twenty pages!” Fred laughed. “That’s a pretty specific number.” “And it should only be longer than three hundred and twenty pages if it’s by an author I really, really like. This author, I’m not crazy about.” “So don’t read it.” “But I feel bad for not reading it. I bought it, I should read it!” “Bessie,” Fred said, and then uttered the truest of the true. “Life’s too fucking short to read books that suck.” And so I tossed in the box of books we’re donating to the library and picked up the next book on the bookcase. Because life IS too short to read books that suck. It really is! (The Myron Bolitar series would be an example of books that rock. In case you were wondering. I’m currently reading The Final Detail and only have another two books in the series left to read. This makes me sad, because I wish this series could go on FOREVER.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ There’s no Cold Stone Creamery here in the Madison area, but Fred and I went to the book store one day a few weeks ago, and I found that they’ve put in a “Marble Slab Creamery”. If that’s not an obvious ripoff of the Cold Stone Creamery, I don’t know what is. In fact, the name – Marble Slab Creamery – just makes me laugh. (Edited to add: Apparently Marble Slab Creamery came first. Who knew?) I haven’t given it a try yet, but I’m sure I will one of these days. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I spent quite some time on Netflix the other day, and found that – holy mother of god! – Season One of The Brady Bunch is coming out on DVD! In fact, I went through all the TV shows on DVD and now my netflix queue is 226 long. Man, that’s going to take me forever to get through! While I’m waiting for Netflix to send me the first disc of Season 4 of Coupling to watch while I’m on the elliptical, I’ve been watching the first season of Sex and the City. Man, I miss that show. The first season was back when Carrie dressed NORMALLY instead of the hideous way she started to dress after the show became a hit. Oh, there goes my Netflix queue. I just added seasons 2 – 6 to it… ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We had curry-cajun chicken for dinner last night. As always, it was faaaaabulous. We always have it with brown rice, and use the sauce from the pan to put over the rice and it is DAMN fine. And I don’t usually care for the taste of curry, but this stuff is good. Speaking of cooking, the spud has to make flan to take to school for her Spanish 2 class tomorrow. The other kids got to make easy-to-make easy-to-transport stuff like cookies, and my kid gets flan. How fair is that? No fair, man. NO FAIR. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We watched Napolean Dynamite last weekend, and ever since I’ve been having a craving for tots. Sonic actually sells them with – if I’m not mistaken – chili and cheese on top. I can’t decide whether that sounds really good or really gross. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Apparently that little fucker saw his shadow last week. Bastard. It’s getting COLD again, after several days with the temps in the mid-fifties. I don’t WANT it to get cold again, I want it to get WARM again and STAY WARM, damnit! I need to just suck it up and move to the Bahamas. Anyone want to finance that for me? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Is that a happy looking cat, or what? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

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Save Oscar! Come on, how can you resist that little face? He’s adorable!!! If you’re in the area or somewhere near the area and are interested, either leave a note at the bottom of ArtImp’s entry, or email me and I’ll pass your email along to her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Horrifying links Fred has sent me lately: (Warning: NOT safe for work; lots of naked boobs) Ugly Breast Implants. These are just scary, folks. Ever wondered what an adult Star-Nosed Mole looks like? Warning: It’s incredibly freakin’ creepy, folks. See it here. Like Fred said, something with a cute name like that, shouldn’t look like THAT. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I’ve been an absolute reading fool lately. Part of it is because I’m currently reading Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series and I LOVE me some Myron (also, I have a secret crush on Win). Part of it is just because I’ve been in a serious reading mood. And part of it is that I have so many freakin’ books to read that they barely fit on a six-foot bookcase and I swear to god they’re multiplying at night while I’m sleeping. I finished Shopaholic & Sister the other night and enjoyed it, but I’ve gotta wonder – how many books can Sophie Kinsella write wherein the main character spends the first third of the book fucking up royally, the second third dealing with the fallout and the last third fixing it all? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty good formula, but after awhile – say, another four books – it’s going to get tired and readers will be placing bets with themselves. “I bet that in the next twenty pages, Our Heroine will watch helplessly as the shit hits the fan!” Recommended for chick lit lovers, and people who are as addicted to US and PEOPLE as I am: Laura Caldwell’s The Year of Living Famously. It kind of gives you a new perspective on the whole paparazzi thing. I know that I’ve always thought “Well, you WANTED to be famous, this is the price of fame” and “Just ignore the photographers and live your life!”, but can you imagine having paparazzi swarm all over you, no matter where you go? Not being able to have a single private moment in a restaurant or store because people are staring at you? I’m sure it might be kind of fun at first, having a ton of people hang on your every move like you’re the most fascinating person on earth, but after that? Eh. Fuck that. I’ll take my anonymous life, thank you. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey, if you’re wanting a Gmail invite and are too shy to ask, please don’t be. Every time I give more than 20 invites away, Gmail gives me even more invites. Don’t be shy, ask for an invite! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So far, the electric fence seems to be deterring the Boog. I was afraid he’d never go outside on his own again, but yesterday afternoon he saw Spot out there, and the thought of Spot out there was enough to drive him crazy. He went out and was out there for ten or fifteen minutes, and I thought to myself “Oh shit. Did he figure a way out of the yard?” and went to the window to look for him. He and Spot were near the fence on the side between our yard and the neighbor’s yard, and as I watched, Mister Boogers looked up at the top of the fence as though he was thinking “Hmm. I could jump!” He moved a little closer to the fence and crouched down as though he was actually going to jump, and then he apparently got zapped, because he did a twisty jump and ran away from the fence. This is the system we bought, by the way. Pricey? Maybe a little, but if it keeps that little bastard’s ass in the yard, it’s very much worth it. Someone asked in Fred’s comments if getting zapped was actually causing the Boog pain. I don’t think it’s painful – I think it’s just very unpleasant. As Fred mentioned, I tried out the collar. I had my fingers directly on the electrode… thingies (I don’t know if they’re actually called “electrodes”, but we’ll call them that) and when I got zapped it was very, very unpleasant and I’d be perfectly happy to never ever feel it again. Hmm. I’m coming up with an idea… What if I wore a collar that zapped me every time I looked at junk food? That would be a pretty good deterrant. I’d be a supermodel in six months! Or, y’know, not. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Y’all have seen this, right? I can just imagine Mister Boogers doing that. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ From my comments: I don’t know why, but when you called Mr. Boogers, “The Boog,” I started cracking up, and so did my boyfriend. The bad thing is, I showed him your entry while we were in class and he had to try really hard not to laugh – almost to the point of a constipated face. Mister Boogers, I am sad to say, has a long list of ever-evolving nicknames. When he’s being BAD, like when he is smacking at the blinds because he wants out and we won’t let him, I call him “Stumpy”, because it’s easy to yell and makes clear my displeasure. Lately I’ve been calling him “The Boog” when he’s being fluffy and cute. Also, “Boogity-Boog” when I’m talking to him. “Dat Booger” comes into use when I ask him what he’s doing – ie, “What Dat Booger doin’?” (He never tells me, though.) The spud calls him “Boogie” sometimes (which always makes me think of the “joke”, if you can call it that – How do you make a hankie dance? Put a little boogie in it). And, as always, when he’s picking on the other cats he’s “Knock it off, Shithead!” Also from my comments: So did you actually drive thru the drive thru and forget to get the Diet Coke? This is regarding my entry last week when I was having “One of those days” and went out specifically to get a large Diet Coke, drove to McDonald’s, and home again without getting one. No, I didn’t actually go through the drive thru – I just basically drove by McDonald’s and home again. My head was obviously totally in the clouds that day! Hey there Robyn! I was wondering if there is any way that I could see/find the special on Penn and Teller..the one you were on of course! I’d LOVE LOVE to see it!! You can rent the first season of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! at your local movie store or through Netflix. The episode we were on was episode number 13, which (I’m pretty sure) is on disc 4. The title of the episode is Eat This! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Bwah! Look at the face he’s making! I think this calls for a closeup of the face! I have no clue what he was attempting to do here, but that face is cracking me UP. ]]>

latest entry for a description of how we’re keeping the Boog in the back yard these days. Also, a very funny movie that I can’t stop watching – and it always makes me laugh until I wheeze! I suspect that Mister Boogers will do his best to figure out how to get around it at some point in the future, but right now he’s a little scared to go outside at all. We put the collar on and open the cat door every morning and leave it open all day long, and Mister Boogers will stick his head out there and chatter at the birds, and with some coaxing he’ll go outside and check things out, but he doesn’t quite dare to stay out for long. Hopefully he’ll eventually figure out that he only gets zapped when he goes near the fence, and that the rest of the yard is fair game. But even if he’s too scared to go outside, I’d rather have him inside and alive than outside hopping the fence and going god knows where!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I bought a bottle of Aveeno lotion and a bottle of Aveeno Very Gentle Shower Scrub (or something like that), because my skin is so freakin’ sensitive that if I so much as think about using any kind of lotion I immediately break out into hives. Seriously, I’ve tried Curel, I’ve tried Eucerin, I’ve tried every kind of unscented safe-for-eczema-ridden-people lotion in existence, and they always make me break out. I was using hydrocortisone – Cortaid – as a lotion for a little while, and then Fred bought some lotion with hydrocortisone in it for Spot – who’s been grooming his belly and legs to the point where they were hairless – and he bought an extra bottle for me, and I gave it a try and it seems to work just fine. Yes, I use the same kind of lotion as my CAT. What, you didn’t already know I was a freak? But anyway, I bought this Aveeno lotion because it was extra-strength lotion for the hands and claimed to last twenty-four hours through many handwashings and all that, and since my hands are on the verge of becoming crepey old-lady hands, I bought a bottle. I gave it a try and it’s pretty good, though to be honest I think the Bath and Body Works Hand Repair lotion is better and lasts longer, but you have to put up with the scent, and the Hand Repair lotion doesn’t come in my favorite scents. So, anyway. The Aveeno. I put it on and rubbed it into my hands, and then I sniffed it. Because unscented lotion isn’t really unscented, you know? Everything’s got a scent, even the unscented stuff. Curel and Eucerin are unscented and for sensitive skin, but they each have their own distinctive scent, because – like I said – everything’s got a scent! Not this Aveeno lotion, though. It had no scent at all. I put my nose right down to the lotion and sniffed as hard as I could, and there was no scent at all. It’s kind of freaky, really. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So Friday I got around to watching a Dr. Phil show that I’d taped earlier in the week. It was a follow-up to the series he’s calling The Doctor, The Wife, and The Mistress. If you haven’t caught it before now, here’s a quick description of what it’s about: Kandi and Ed have been married for 12 years, they have three kids, and he started having an affair with a nurse he works with; he told his wife (Kandi) that he’d been having the affair, and guess what? The mistress is pregnant. The husband in this case – Ed – is such a slimy asshole that every time I see his smug fucking face I want to punch him. UGH. Anyway, Kandi was on the show last week, but Ed wasn’t because he didn’t like what Dr. Phil was telling him. Also, he’s a slimy asshole. Have I mentioned? Kandi updated Dr. Phil that she finally kicked Ed out of the house and he kept calling and coming over and telling her that he’d broken up with the mistress and she could have him followed, because he was telling the truth. And she had him followed – to the mistress’s house! Let’s amend that description to STUPID slimy asshole, shall we? Anyway, all this is to say that until she was on Dr. Phil the other day she had no idea what the mistress looked like, and then Dr. Phil provided her with a picture (though we didn’t get to see it, and may I just say? NO FAIR!), and Kandi looked at it, and she laughed, and she talked about how ugly the mistress is, and Dr. Phil agreed, and they laughed some more, and Kandi said (paraphrased) “It’s obviously not about the looks with Ed! It’s got to be about the sex!” and she and Dr. Phil giggled some more. So what I’m thinking is that what Dr. Phil and Kandi are trying to do is goad the mistress into appearing on the show. Does anyone else get that impression, too? Also, Kandi? You don’t need to be talking about the mistress being so ugly, when your slimy asshole husband has been hit with a great big ugly stick. You, however, are adorable. But stop being a doormat. Ooh! Today’s show is about “Invasive In-Laws”! I love stories about horrible in-laws, probably because I’ve always been lucky enough to have pretty good in-laws. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “This is how I feel about that friggindamn collar they keep putting on me. One day I’m going to shove it down The Momma’s throat, and then we’ll just see HOW HARD SHE LAUGHS, won’t we?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>