Category: Life

faaaaaaaaamous? (Scroll down to the March 2nd entry) You all have to refer to me as “Journaler and (soon-to-be-published) AUTHOR Ethan Hawke Robyn And3rson” from now on. I insist! Of course, the interesting question is, how do I explain this whole blog/ journal thing to my mother. Maybe I should just say nothing, and when the book turns out to be a runaway best seller and we’re all on Oprah I’ll make sure she doesn’t watch that episode. Oh! Or I’ll just fake my way through! “A bunch of women? On Oprah? Really? And they have what? What on EARTH are “BLOGS”, Mom? Huh. And she looked just like me, and when Oprah addressed her, she laughed goonily and drooled out the side of her mouth? Well, lord KNOWS it wasn’t me, I’d never do THAT, I’m FAR too classy. They say everyone has a twin, don’t they? What? She has the same NAME as me? That’s so odd! Gotta go! Bye!”

* * * I guess now would be a good time to tell y’all that I’ve restarted OneFatBitchypoo in another location. * * * Judging by the fact that I’ve seen no fewer than five dead possums laying by the side of the road in the past two days, it must be Spring. Also, it’s 60 degrees outside right now – it hasn’t even had a chance to get as warm as it will today! – and they’re saying it may get as high as 80 by Friday. This is absolutely the time of year when I am SO glad that I live in the south. Daffodils are starting to bloom – I even have one ready to bloom in my back yard! For some reason, the daffodils in my back yard are a little slower than those growing in other yards. There’s a big clump of daffodils in a deserted plot about a half mile from here, and every time I drive by, I think about stopping and picking them. Happy little daffodils. They make me happy just to see their sunny little faces! * * * You know, for a long time I liked James Patterson’s books, but it seems like in the last few years he just kind of lost his shit and started putting out a book every six weeks. He’s got the Alex Cross series, he’s got the Women’s Murder Club series, and he’s got random other books that aren’t part of a series. He needs to slow the fuck down, because every time I turn around, there’s another book by him coming out. I’ve stopped reading him because it’s overwhelming. I mean, I hate the fact that I have to wait a year between Stephanie Plum books, but part of the enjoyment of the book is that year of anticipation. Speaking of authors worth reading, I’ve devoured every book in Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series, and I highly recommend them. * * * Okay, I have three episodes of China Beach burning a hole in my DVR, so I think I’m going to go watch them. Have I mentioned that I adore my DVR? * * * “How YOU doin’?” ]]>

That BASTARD! He never shared any of his Tim Tams with ME! Big thanks to reader Raqual, who sent the scanned article to me about an hour after she found out what I needed. You Aussies rock! (For the record, Fred’s more amused by this than mad. Mostly because it makes him giggle with glee to think of the Australian Men’s Health editor saying “Oh, no one will ever know…” a few months ago, and then coming into his office today to find emails and phone calls letting him know he’s busted.)

* * * Pet store kitty pics are here. * * * If I had been successful in setting up a TV-and-movie blog last night, I would be able to direct you there, where I’d have a movie of William Hung singing She Bangs with BACKUP DANCERS on the American Idol special last night. However, although I created the blog, I wasn’t able to get the frickin’ entries to archive by category (wouldn’t it be a good idea to archive the entries by category, so that someone could click on, say, the American Idol category and read all the posts in that category?) and although I tried following the instructions I found online, I couldn’t get the damn thing to work, so I gave up in a huff and deleted the blog. Damn you, Movable Type! Damn you! Speaking of American Idol, was that a great show last night, or what? I mean, just seeing the Bulgarian girl with the really deep voice was worth it, let alone seeing William Hung sing TWO songs. The only one I wanted to see but didn’t was the girl whose voice was creeping Randy out, because every time she’d sing, lightning would crash outside. Seeing William Hung with backup singers was funny as shit, especially the way they all waved their arms in the air when he did. * * * Ever since I’ve been driving the Jeep that used to be Fred’s, I’ve been enjoying it. It has all the little amenities that my old Jeep didn’t, like seats that warm up (we’ve always called it “ass”, as in “DAMN it’s cold in here, give me some ass!”), a sunroof, a kick-ass stereo (in my old Jeep, the stereo sucked so badly that I could only listen to it out of the front right speaker, and that only as long as I didn’t turn the bass on), and leather seats. I mean, forgetting that we’ve spent way too much on repairs in the past year, this Jeep really rocks. There’s one thing that doesn’t rock at ALL, though, and that’s the door that lifts up so that you can get into the very back of the Jeep. You know, where you put groceries since there’s no trunk. The door opens just fine, and lifts up just fine, but as for staying up? Not so much. I discovered this lovely little fact when I was loading groceries into the back last week. As I turned to grab another bag out of the grocery cart*, the door swung down and smacked me on top of my head. And it fucking HURT, believe you me. I yelled “OW!”, and told myself to be more careful in the future. Since then, I’ve been smacked in the head two more times, each hurting more than the last. When there are things like big-ass bags of cat food in the back of the Jeep, and I need both hands to pick it up, and it APPEARS as though the door is going to stay up, I tend to take the chance. One of these days instead of slowly swinging down, the door is going to fly down at a rapid speed when I least expect it and ::clunk:: me on the top of my already sore noggin and I’ll drop like a bag of shit, and Fred’s going to come home from work to find me dead in a puddle of blood in the middle of the driveway, surrounded by melting groceries. And when that happens, dear readers, I expect you all to hound Fred so that he feels guilty until the very day that he dies for passing such a lemon on to me. (Perhaps it’s all part of his plan to kill me off so he can get his hands on Miz Poo?) * They call grocery carts “buggies” here in the south. For some reason, that cutesy word drives me NUTS. I loathe it! Gah! * * * ]]>

new logo at the top, this one created by the lovely and talented Kat. My GOD I love that picture of the Bean!

* * * NEEDED: An Australian who can buy a magazine (in Australia, naturally), scan an article, email it to me, and then snail-mail the magazine to me. I’ll pay you back by purchasing something for you from your wish list, fair enough? Time’s of the essence, here. Email me if you’re up for the task. (Note: I’ve got it! Big, big thanks to reader Raqual, who rocks!) * * * Following the link from Gwen‘s page on Saturday, I took this test at Match.com to determine what kind of look I find attractive. This is my new boyfriend. I call him Jimmy. It’s a difficult test to take, because it’s hard to tell anything about a person from a picture. I mean, how do I know that Jimmy isn’t one of those close-talkers or fast-blinkers? What if he just sits there with that smile on his face? I mean, the smile is probably what I like most about Jimmy, but if he just sits there and smiles like that all the time, I might begin to think he’s a bit simple-minded. Here’s what else my test results said: Interestingly, a lot of the features you liked are not especially popular. They’re not what usually defines “mainstream” attractiveness for men. Although you quickly knew who was not appealing to you, there were only a few common features that set them apart. See this short list below. Obviously, you just know what does and does not work for you physically. Looking at over 10,000 women in your age group who have taken the test, about 17% are attracted to the same types you are. You are open to seeing a variety of men as handsome. Sure, men with “movie star” good looks catch your eye, but you are often equally wowed by more normal “cute” guys. You’re not one to judge people based on their looks. In fact, you’re genuinely drawn to men that others might dismiss. Maybe it’s because you don’t buy into society’s checklist for “mainstream” attractiveness. You have a more open and accepting view of what makes a man handsome than a lot of other women your age. In the test, you didn’t pick the most “popular” men, but instead seemed to focus on your own personal tastes. Your choices suggest you like what scientists call the “Meso-Endomorph,” body type. In other words, you like big, strong guys. If he didn’t play defense in high school football, he was probably on the wrestling team. He has “big bones,” which you’ll notice in his wide shoulders and thick wrists. He has muscular shoulders, which are perfect for resting your head on, and big strong arms to wrap around you. I’d say the results were pretty accurate, for the most part. Fred took the test, too, and his results came back saying that he’s very picky when it comes to choosing women. I, on the other hand, am not picky at all. Heh! (Edited to add: Fred thinks that Jimmy looks strikingly like Francis on Malcolm in the Middle. I can definitely see the resemblance, and I do think Francis is pretty cute!) * * * This made me laugh out loud: I am currently being chastised by a woman who freely admits that she didn’t vote in the last presidential election and “could care less who wins this one”. She is outraged by the fact that I didn’t watch the Academy Awards and is calling me un-American. * * * Know what’s kinda cool? This. * * * Several people have recently asked whether the Tubby “Meh” swag would ever be available again. Let it not be said that I don’t love y’all – click on the “Bean Swag” picture over there on the sidebar, and it’ll take you to the CafePress store where I switched all the pictures back over to Tubby’s “Meh” picture. While I’m talking about the sidebar, you can see the new “Movie of the Week”, located under the “About” heading. This movie stars one whiny little Miz Poo who only wants lurrrrve. As a special treat at the end, you get to hear my goofy-ass high-pitched talking-to-the-kitties voice when I speak to Spanky, who wants to know why the HELL Miz Poo keeps whining. Is their food involved? And can he have some, please? * * * I have no idea what he was staring at, but he stared at it for a long, long time. (No, there were no birds up in the tree, I checked) So pretty. So dumb. Gotta love the Spanky.]]>

thread over at TUS wherein you can vote for the perfection of your relationship from 0 to 100 by 10s, with 0 being “I don’t know why we’re together” and 100 being “We are perfect together.” I rated my relationship 90, because to rate it 100 would be asking Fate to slap me down (“Oh, that perfect is it? Let’s add a little stress to the equation and see how well you deal! Let’s give YOU a brain tumor, shall we?”) There’s another thread regarding what you fight about. I have to say, we don’t really fight. We argue from time to time, we disagree about a whole host of shit, but we don’t really fight, because we’re big babies and neither of us can stand to have the other mad at us for more than 5 minutes. Seriously, I can’t stand it. That whole “don’t go to bed mad” thing? I could never go to bed mad, or rather having Fred mad at me. I’d be way too stressed out. Yeah, I’m a freak.

* * * On America’s Funniest Home Videos last week, there was a cat video. I dumped said cat video to a tape, and the tape to the camcorder, and THEN made a digital movie out of it. Because I’m a dork. It’s not the funniest cat video I’ve seen – that one’s reserved for “Harmoni-Cat”, which I have thus far been unable to find online anywhere – but it’s pretty cute. Right click on save it to your hard drive before viewing, if you will. I’ll leave it up for a week before I take it down to save on space. See it here. * * * One afternoon a few months ago, the phone rang. Although I usually check the caller ID before I pick up a call, the only person who calls during the day is Fred, and so I answered without checking. It was someone from the CDC, wanting me to answer a survey about immunizations. I sighed and rolled my eyes, but figured I might as well answer the questions – after all, how many could there possibly be? Two? “Do you have a child? Does your child get immunizations?” Yes and yes. So the guy starts with the questions – how many people under the age of 18 live in your house, how old is he/she, how many people total live in your house – and I answer them. Then he paused to again tell me the point of the survey and that it was completely anonymous. THEN he told me that it would take 20 to 30 minutes to complete the survey. TWENTY TO THIRTY MINUTES?!?! Dude, what the fuck? I don’t talk for 20 to 30 minutes on the phone to people I know and LIKE, let alone some strange man from the CDC! So I hung up. Oh, shut up. I figure anyone who calls me in my home and wants me to answer questions for TWENTY TO THIRTY MINUTES deserves to be hung up on. Time passes, and earlier this week we received mail from the Department of Health and Human Services, addressed to Fred. Assuming it was something to do with that Hepatitis he had a few years ago, I didn’t bother to open it, and left it on his desk. When he got home, he opened it and found a letter saying “The CDC needs your help! Recently your family was asked to participate in the survey” blahblahblah “Your household is very important to the study because it has been scientifically selected and we cannot substitute another household for yours”. The best part of this? There was a FIVE DOLLAR BILL clipped to the front of the letter. All we have to do, the letter says, is participate in the study when the interviewer calls. And if we do, they’ll send us another ten bucks! Your tax dollars at work, folks. Doesn’t it give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know that your government is sending out five dollar bills to random people like us? * * * I took a bath this morning instead of a shower. While I was laying in the tub reading, Miz Poo climbed up on the side of the tub, surveyed the situation, and then climbed up on me and curled up on my chest. It was kind of cool, actually. Until the Bean jumped up on the side of the tub to investigate, and Miz Poo dug her back claws into my chest to keep herself balanced, and smacked the hell out of the Bean with her front paws. Ouch. * * * Miz Poo wishes I’d stop all that friggin’ singing and just go the hell away. ]]>

SURVIVOR ENTRY; SKIP THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE YET! So all I can guess is that the warning for scenes that might be inappropriate for younger viewers was Rich rubbing his dick on Sue? I mean, I guess that’s what happened; we rewinded to watch it again, but still really couldn’t tell. If it were me, I think a firm grasp and really hard tug would have stopped that move right in it’s tracks. That, or just a hard elbow to the crotch – “Oops! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” Plus, we probably would have been treated to a high-pitched scream. High-pitched screams are always damn funny. I like Rich, though, and didn’t want to see him go, despite his stupid-ass “Oh, I’m here with women. I’ll go nekkid and intimidate them!” shit. Rumor has it the Hatch weinis ain’t that intimidating… Not a fan of Colby this time around, but I’m liking Jerri. Poor Rupert can’t catch a break, can he? He builds a kick-ass raft, but it’s just too damn slow. I don’t think anyone on the dissolved tribe was sad to see it happen though, that’s for sure. Is it wrong that I’m looking forward to seeing Sue flip her lip next week? I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO WAIT A WHOLE WEEK. Wahhhh!]]>

Political Compass test and my result is thus: Right there around Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Gandhi. Heh. Take the test and tell me your results in the comments!

* * * The Bachelorette spoilers in this section; skip it if you haven’t seen the final episode yet! I absolutely do NOT get why Meredith would take it upon herself to tell Matt that she would be “honored” to receive a ring from him at the end, when SHE DIDN’T CHOOSE HIM. To me, telling him something like that would make me think she WAS going to choose him. From what I could tell, her saying that kind of came out of the blue, not in response to Matt saying “What would you think if I gave you a ring?” Of course, I suppose that could be through editing. Gah. I don’t know, I still liked Todd better than either Ian OR Matt, anyway. I still don’t necessarily think that Ian’s the right guy for her, but they were both so happy at the end that I couldn’t begrudge them that happiness. I do hope that it lasts and that they end up married, though from all I’ve read, Meredith won’t go for the multi-million-dollar extravaganza the way Trista did, so we can only wait and see. Matt is one classy guy, with that speech at the end. I’m sure he’s got half a million girls in Texas chasing him down right about now! * * * So yesterday, I watched High Price of Fame – Under the Knife. In this show, they talked about celebrities who’ve obviously had plastic surgery and those who may have had it. Then they followed people who were having plastic surgery and showed the results. There was an absolutely adorable girl who wanted to be an anchor, but thought she looked too young, so had a chin implant. I was skeptical, but she looked pretty good at the end. There was a guy who’d lost 115 pounds and was having liposuction and a tummy tuck, and he looked pretty good at the end (of course, he looked pretty good to begin with, too!). And then? And then, oh people, came the woman who made me want to cry. Heidi Marks, if you’ve never heard of her (I hadn’t), used to be married to Vince Neil. They showed a picture of her at her wedding to Vince. Pretty girl, right? Well then, they showed her as she is now: God, why why WHY do women do this to themselves? She was SO CUTE before, why did she have to go for the silicon in the lips and the I’m-so-surprised brow lift? She looks like a freak, with her huge duck lips and her unmoving upper face. GAH. People, please. PLEASE do not INJECT SILICON IN YOUR LIPS. I understand the desire to have lips like Angelina Jolie, only the problem is that Angelina Jolie’s lips are like that naturally, and that look cannot be duplicated successfully by injecting crap into your lips. YOU LOOK LIKE A DUCK. I understand the heartbreak and pain behind having thin lips. I have the thinnest upper lip in the world. When I laugh, it disappears. But I’ve learned to live with the lipless pain. You can too! Don’t fuck with your lips, folks. PLEASE. Hey, I’m all FOR plastic surgery, but not when it comes to the lips. Hell no. You don’t want to look like Heidi Marks, do you? (Oh, and in case you’re curious, they were featuring Heidi Marks not because she looks freakish now, but rather because she was undergoing her third surgery for breast implants) * * * Excuse the quality of the pictures below. I took them using the camcorder “snapshot” function. The bean stalks that damn feather toy the Daddy is always waving around. When the Bean gets annoyed at the Daddy, who won’t STOP WAVING THAT DAMN TOY AROUND SO THE BEAN CAN GET IT, he goes and hangs out in the Stump Cave. I sang “And here’s to you, Pooty Pooterson, jesus loves you more than you will know – whoa whoa whoa” to Miz Poo last night, and Fred didn’t even smile. Bastard. (I also sang “Sometimes it’s hard to be a Pooty. Giving all your love to just one Stump. He’ll have good times, and you’ll have bad times doin’ things that you don’t understand. Stand by your Stump!” in a very thick southern accent, but it wasn’t all that funny. I had fun with it, though!) ]]>

* * * I spent a long time reading through Mac‘s archives last night. Why have none of you people directed me to this woman’s blog before now? Bad, bad readers.

* * * “I feel like this country is going to hell in a handbasket and picking up speed!” I said to Fred on the phone this morning. He half-laughed and said “What do you mean?” “We’ve got a goddamn President who wants to amend our constitution to ensure that gay people can’t marry! Any time I buy an airline ticket, those fuckers are going to do a background check on me and DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT I GET TO FLY! They’re passing spending bills that allow companies to cut the amount of overtime they pay! There are an assload of people in this country who DEPEND on overtime to LIVE. This DOES NOT STRIKE ME as a government that is staying the FUCK out of my face!” Fred agreed and pointed out that Republicans, so the rumor goes, are supposed to be the political party that doesn’t believe in big government. “Oh, I think I KNOW what’s next,” I said. “With all the news stories about how fat this country is? They’re going to come haul my fat ass away to the Dr. Phil and Bob Greene Internment Camp, where they’ll feed me Dr. Phil’s Shape-Up bars and drinks and make me run around in circles until I look like Lara Flynn Boyle!” “Know what’s funny?” Fred said. “When you said this country is going to hell in a handbasket?” “Yeah?” “The people who believe that gays shouldn’t marry feel the same way, that we’re going to hell in a handbasket.” “But THEY are WRONG,” I said. He just laughed. Seriously, it makes me want to sell everything I own, buy a yurt, slap it down in the middle of nowhere, and live off the freakin’ land. You can oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment here, if you’re of a mind to. This is what I hope. I hope that when the spud is my age, she can say to her children “Did you know that there was a time when gay men and women were not allowed to marry the person they loved?” And that her kids will feel the way I feel when I read about how people of different races once upon a time were not allowed to marry each other, that they will laugh in disbelief and say “No way! They weren’t? But why? That’s so ignorant!”, and that the spud will have to shrug and say to her children “I don’t know. It was a different time then.” And then that my grandchildren will pause to be grateful that they aren’t living in those backwards times. (Many of those above links (except for the yurt link) were taken from Mac’s blog.) * * * So, American Idol. You know, I really really wanted to like Jon Peter Lewis, and I LOVE that song, but when he came out and started singing Tiny Dancer, I cringed and turned to Fred and yelled “What the fuck is he DOING?” “Baby” sounded like “bay-hey” and “lady” like “lay-hey.” What the hell is that about? I would have a video clip right here to illustrate my point, because I taped the show with the DVR and then taped it from the DVR to the VCR and tried to dump it to the camera, but messed it up. Maybe tomorrow. LaToya London kicked ASS. If she doesn’t make it through to the next round, I’ll eat my hat. (Which is a trick statement, since I don’t have a hat. Ha!) * * * IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE OF SCRUBS, SKIP THIS SECTION. SPOILERS INSIDE. How many fucking times am I going to be suckered in by the “Oh, wait! He’s dead!” thing? I’m thinking of two different books and of course the one big movie with that ending, and yet I still get completely suckered in. When Dr. Cox walked in and JD said “Fifteen minutes after you left, he went into cardiac arrest and died”, I actually laughed, because I thought that Dr. Cox was going to misunderstand and think that JD was talking about his friend and there would be a whole brouhaha. ARGH. ARGH, I SAY. I dumped the whole show to the DVR so I can watch it again, because I’m a freak. Yes, I got all teary-eyed when it came clear what was going on. Again, I say ARGH. * * * Public service announcement: Should have. Would have. Could have. Not should of, would of, or could of. Should’ve sounds like “should of”, but it’s not spelled that way. (Public service announcement brought about by reading Pamie’s comments earlier.) * * * What the kitties spend most of their day doing. ]]>

* * * Pet store kitty pics are here.

* * * “What does that sign say?” the spud asked from the back seat of Fred’s (former) Jeep on Sunday. We were sitting at a red light waiting to turn right, and on the telephone pole a few feet away was a picture of a dog. “It says ‘lost’.” I said. “I thought you wore GLASSES,” Fred said with a significant look over his shoulder. “I’m not wearing them right now,” the spud said in her how-stupid-are-YOU voice. “My point exactly,” Fred said. He went on, “If you were wearing your glasses like you SHOULD, you would know that that says ‘lost’.” The spud rolled her eyes and squinted up at the sign. “What’s lost?” “A dog,” I said, and opened my mouth to elaborate, but Fred beat me to the punch. “A chihuahua,” he said, pronouncing it “Chuh-hooa-hooa” like Les Nessman would. The light turned green and we turned right. “That did NOT say it was a chihuahua,” I said. “It said it was a chocolate lab!” “No! Are you sure?” Fred asked. “It’s a chocolate lab and she’s shy and isn’t wearing a collar,” I said, proving that I’d read the entire sign. There was a long silence, and then the spud snorted from the back seat. “Yeah!” she said. “Who needs glasses NOW?” Heh. * * * We watched Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star this past weekend (you just shut up), and I highly recommend it, not necessarily for the movie, but for what’s after the movie. Which is a bunch of former child stars singing a song, with the video reminding me one hell of a lot of We Are the World. Hell, it’s worth it for the part where Peter Brady chimes in with the cracked voice a la When it’s Time to Change (“you’ve got to rearraaaaaaaaange whoyaareandwhatyou’reagonnabe ShananananananaNUH, shanananananananNUH!”) When did those Brady kids get so goddamn old? * * * I’d say last night’s episode of My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance was a bit anticlimactic. What was with that whole speech where Steve talked about how the Coys were so close and cared so much for each other? That was ass-kissy, wasn’t it? Ah well. I predicted to Fred that they’d get a million bucks no matter what happened, and apparently they can use it. When she was talking about how she’d done it all for them because she knew that Crazy Pat wanted to move out and Melanie wanted to travel and Bobby wouldn’t have to worry about having to afford college, they looked a little embarrassed about the fuss they’d made, didn’t they? I’d make an ass out of my family for half a million bucks, nooooo problem. For that matter, if anyone in my family wants to make an ass out of me (though I do a pretty good job of it myself) for $500,000, consider this my blanket permission. * * * Reader Erin sent me a card that made her think of me. I can’t IMAGINE why on earth it made her think of me… Heh. Thanks, Erin! inside: Personally, I like to bitch. Which reminded me of the card I saw at Target last year that I just had to buy, even though I didn’t have anyone to send it to: inside: I did a crappy thing. please forgive me. I also got a funny card from Jane, who signed it in such a way that I laughed out loud and swallowed my gum. Then I showed it to Fred, who didn’t appreciate the humor. Bastard. I’d scan it, but I’m too lazy to go look for the book it’s serving as a bookmark in (my god, that sentence was horribly constructed). I’m a card-getting motherfucker, that’s right. * * * The stump looks pissy for no discernible reason. The stump storms the perimeter of the yard, trying to find a way out (behind him is a hole in the fence too small to get through. Mr. Fancypants used to love to stand and stare through that hole into the yard next door. Freak.). He takes a break to slurp down some water from the bowl we leave outside so that our cats don’t have to go any further than a few feet at any given time whenever they happen to be thirsty. God forBID they have to haul their asses all the way upstairs to the water bowl. Man on a mission. (He wasn’t able to find a way out. Yay!)]]>

An excellent way to show your support; I just sent some money that way. It would rock if every single couple waiting in line to get married in SF was given flowers, dontchathink? Also, Desi sent me a link to this picture, and I followed another link to this wonderful set of pictures.

* * * Hey, look! A couple of the guys from The Bachelorette have their own web sites. Todd, who was funny as hell, is here, and Ryan M. (that cute guy who couldn’t shut up) is here. Can a Trista and Ryan blog be far behind? I think not! * * * I just started on my first packet of Seasonale last night. This means, if my calculations are correct, that I won’t be having my period again until mid-May. You have NO idea how thrilled I am by this, folks. I’m going to save a fortune on tampons, that’s for sure. I do expect, however, that my body will be confused as hell in a few weeks. I always start retaining water about a week before my period is due. The pill I was on is monophasic (a steady dose of hormones throughout the course of the pill, rather than triphasic, in which the hormone level changes through the course of the pill), which means that there’s no reason my body should do anything to prepare for the onset of my period until the Sunday comes when I don’t feed it a pill at bedtime. But I’ve been on the pill for several years, and I guess my body has adjusted well enough to know when to start retaining water. I’m going to estimate that it’ll take an entire year for my body to completely adjust to the new regimen, but that’s okay with me. Better a confused body for a year with only 4 periods a year, than an unconfused body and 12 periods. Oh, don’t give me that look. Y’all KNOW you love it when I talk about my period! * * * Lately – say over the past few weeks – Fred has started pointing out SUVs that he thinks he’d like. Because I’m pretty good at reading the signs, I had a feeling that we’d be shopping for a new SUV sometime soon. Finally Friday, we started seriously talking about it, and decided to do some looking around over the weekend. Actually, what we talked about was trading in his Jeep for a new vehicle, but I came up with a better idea: trade in my Jeep, since it’s in worse shape than his, PLUS we owe less money on it, and his Jeep could become mine. Which means that I’d get a Jeep that is in better shape AND has a kick-ass stereo. Saturday morning Fred headed out to check out an SUV that had the look and price that was within our range. He called me on his way home to tell me that it was “ugly as hell” and that he was no longer interested in it. Saturday evening, at my suggestion, we got Subway for dinner. After we ate, we went to another dealership, where we all piled in to another SUV and went for a test drive. The verdict? It was okay, but he didn’t love it. (He asked my opinion, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s his opinion that counts, since he’s the one who’ll be driving it) It’s only a 4 cylinder, and after driving an 8-cylinder Jeep, it was a big difference. We got a printout from the salesman showing the different payment options, Fred told him he wanted to think about it, and we left. We spent a good part of Sunday driving around looking at different SUVs, unmolested by salespeople, since most car places are closed on Sundays around here. We stopped at a dealership near where Fred works when a particularly cute SUV caught his eye, and they happened to be selling a yellow Beetle. The door was unlocked, so I actually sat in the car and got a feel for how comfortable I’d be in a Beetle. It was amazing how much room was in that car, especially the dashboard. (No, this is not a story about how we went to look at cars for Fred and came home with a yellow Beetle for me, unfortunately!) This morning Fred went to test-drive an SUV he really liked, and he reported back to me that he really, really likes it. He’s going to go drive another SUV at another dealership later this morning, but the one he drove this morning has 6 cylinders, and the one he’s going to go drive later is only a 4 cylinder. I’m pretty sure he’s going to call me this afternoon and tell me he signed the papers to buy the 6 cylinder SUV. This is absolutely the most adult thing we’ve ever done, shopping around for an SUV. Before, we’ve always said “Hey, let’s go look at cars!”, and ended up coming home that very same day with a new (used) car. This whole test-driving and thinking-about-it thing, the running the numbers to see what the payment would be, the seeing who’ll give us a good deal? Never done it before. Sad, isn’t it? What’s even cooler than Fred getting a new SUV and passing his Jeep on to me, is the fact that THAT Jeep will be paid off, or close to it, in about a year. And then? And then, my friends, it will be time for me to get a new vehicle. A car. A SMALL car. Possibly a yellow Beetle. And I’m willing to wait a whole year to get what I want. Will wonders never cease? * * * I love these little bitty birds. Finches, aren’t they? Spanky, checking to be sure the back door is still open. Such a pretty boy. ]]>